Interim
by Iniga
Summary: Between the reigns of Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew spends twelve years as Scabbers Weasley. Harry drags up memories for Remus. Sirius knows he left his sanity around here somewhere. If only he could remember where. Plotless. Written before OotP, HBP, DH.
1. Wormtail

"**Interim"**

**Disclaimer: **_Harry Potter characters and situations belong to JKR, her publishers, and Warner Brothers.__Much of the dialogue in part 3 is quoted directly from __Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban__ and __Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire__. I repeat: I did not write the Shrieking Shack scene. I just changed the point of view._

**Summary: **_Peter spends twelve years as Scabbers Weasley. Remus gets dragged back into the magical world by Harry. And Sirius searches for his long-missing sanity. _

**Note: **_This is a sequel to my story Darkness Dying. It ought to stand alone, however._

**Warning: **_For plotlessness. Lack of originality. And twisting timelines._ _Also, this story is not canon-compliant with OotP, HBP, or DH as it was written before their publication._

**December 12, 1981 - September 1, 1993**

Wormtail staggered awkwardly out of the sewer. He knew that he would never get over the degrading, debasing experience of being deprived of his meal by a pack of rats. _They were more vicious than usual last night_, he reflected as he scampered through the sunlight to a damp, shadowed corner behind a staircase. _Perhaps because it was a full moon? Are non-magical animals affected by the full moon?_

_I wish they were magical. They'd recognize me as a wizard. They wouldn't dare take my pathetic excuse for breakfast! They'd know that I could dispose of them with a flick of my wand!_

Wormtail rested his weary head on one front paw. The other front paw still rather sore, though perhaps six weeks had passed since the… accident.

_You have a gift for understatement, Wormtail. You didn't know how to cast the spell and you killed twelve people instead of just giving yourself enough space to disappear. Some mistake. _

On the other hand, getting Sirius framed for the whole mess had been a stroke of genius.

Wormtail regretted that he had, in a manner of speaking, ended the lives of twelve Muggles. He did not, however, regret that Sirius Black had taken the blame. A lifetime ago, when Wormtail had still called himself Peter (a human name he had since renounced), he had joined forces with a powerful wizard in the hopes that by doing so he would be able to protect his friends. But Sirius, bloody Sirius, thinking himself smarter than the rest of the world combined, had insisted that Peter be Lily and James' Secret-Keeper. The plan had backfired in more ways than Wormtail would have thought possible, and here he was, unable to resume his human form.

_Perhaps, now that Sirius is safe in Azkaban…_

No. That was nothing but wishful thinking. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had told his followers that Wormtail had the information that would lead to the Potters' downfall. And when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had died, or at least vanished, along with Lily and James, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's followers had placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the informant.

_Perhaps Remus…_

No. No matter how glad Remus might be to see Wormtail alive again, he would not be able to protect him from the many followers of the Dark Lord who had evaded capture. An army of wizards trained in Dark Magic was in no way comparable to a handful of smart-mouthed Slytherins who thought it would be fun to hex a Gryffindor.

Wormtail would become human again only if He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named returned to power and told his followers that his inability to kill Harry Potter had had nothing to do with a certain young spy.

_Harry. I always knew that kid wasn't normal. I tried to fuss over him because everyone else did, but I never liked him._

His thoughts were not entirely true. He had liked Harry. Everyone had liked Harry. But it would be much simpler to adjust to life as a rat if he did not think of the few people he would miss. _Harry. Remus. Mother. _

Shaking himself slightly, Wormtail returned to the matter at hand: he needed food. He also needed news of the wizarding world. He had been lucky enough to overhear a Muggle explaining that "the man who caused the explosion on November first was sent to jail," but he had heard no real reports of the intricacies of the situation. There was no question: he had to get to a wizarding region.

He stared at the sewer in disgust. He did not want to go back there, with the Muggle rats and the stench and the darkness.

As he stared, though, a tattered scrap of paper caught his eye. He attempted to study it without looking too obvious. _Rats can't read, after all_. A bus schedule! It was a bus schedule, and nearby was a bus stop.

Several uncomfortable fume-filled stowaway hours later, Wormtail arrived at the entrance to Diagon Alley. He had to wait until two busily chatting wizards opened the entrance to scamper inside, but once there he breathed as much of a sigh of relief as a rat could produce.

The rest of the day passed pleasantly in large part because Wormtail was able to eat his fill when a young witch's summoning charm went wrong and scattered a pile of wares from the bakery along the length of the street. Savoring the sensation of a full stomach, Wormtail found an out-of-the-way nook in which to relax until he felt ready to tackle his other problems.

Just when he decided to put off his quest for information, though, opportunity presented itself. As a tall, thin wizard walked past so hurriedly that the small boy by his side had to trot to keep up, a voice from further down the alley hollered "ARTHUR!" The thin wizard looked annoyed, but returned the greeting. Wormtail noted that both men wore Ministry robes. In a past life, he, too, had been involved in the Ministry, but thankfully he had not known these two. "Are you trying to get away from me, Arthur? You seem to be in an awful hurry."

Arthur shook his head. "Percy and I have plans today. Don't we, Percy?"

The boy nodded firmly. "We're going to get ice cream."

The other wizard smiled benignly. "I'll try not to let Ministry business get in the way of ice cream."

"It's all right," the boy-- Percy-- said a little too quickly. "The Ministry is important. I want to join the Ministry when I grow up."

"Do you!" The other wizard was clearly taken by the child, who, while he looked little more than five years old, spoke clearly and precociously.

"This will only take a moment, Percy," Arthur interrupted. Wormtail crept forward to listen more closely and was gravely disappointed to learn that Arthur and his colleague only meant to discuss a shipment of nose-biting teacups which had found their way into a Muggle department store. Percy, too, seemed to lose interest rather swiftly. He shifted boredly on his feet. Apparently, even precocious children with parents in the Ministry had short attention spans.

Wormtail thought it best to retreat before Percy saw him. There was no telling how the odd little boy would react to a dirty, grungy, lame rat.

Unfortunately, his movements caught Percy's eye. Percy looked at his father and then, as if he dared not disturb him, looked back at Wormtail. Wormtail returned the boy's steady gaze and then, as a show of good faith, gathered his energy to skip over his tail as magical rats sometimes did. Each time his weight landed on his sore front paw he winced, but he continued the show.

Percy giggled and squatted down to get a closer look. "Hullo, rat," he said in his childish voice.

_Hullo, meal ticket_, Wormtail thought.

"Can you do other tricks?" Wormtail stood on his hind feet and waved his front feet in the air. The boy's brown eyes widened. "You understand me!" Wormtail bobbed his head up and down in a rat's approximation of a nod.

"Percy!" Arthur reached down to pull his son to his feet, but Percy slipped out of his father's grasp. "Look, Daddy. A rat."

"Yes, a rat. Don't you want ice cream?" Again, he tried to pull his son away, but the boy shook his head empathetically.

"Can I keep him? You said maybe I could have a pet, since the war is over and I'm the oldest with Bill and Charlie at Hogwarts."

Arthur's face paled, and Wormtail was instantly able to place the expression. It was the same look Frank Longbottom had worn every time he had seen James and Lily playing with Harry and lamented that he was unable to spend time with his own son, Neville. Arthur obviously felt that he was a virtual stranger to young Percy, and, as a result, he was likely to give the child most anything he asked for. _The end of the war may mean a great many spoiled children. _

"I don't think you want a mangy rat like that," Arthur said slowly.

Percy was not to be dissuaded. "Yes, I do." Then he turned his head quizzically. "What's 'mangy?'"

"It's, well, look at his fur. Grungy. Scabby."

"Scabby," Percy repeated. "Scabby." Evidently, he liked the sound of the word. "Can I call you 'Scabbers?'"

_You can't do any better than that?_ wondered Wormtail, but he bobbed his head once more.

"You see?" asked Percy delightedly. "He knows his name. He wants to be my pet. He did tricks before." Without being prompted, Wormtail launched into his repertoire once more.

"Are you certain?" Arthur asked at last, and both Percy and Wormtail smiled. "Having a pet can be a lot of work."

"I can do it, Daddy."

"I believe you can," agreed Arthur, and he aimed his wand at Wormtail. A few cleaning spells did wonders for the coat which had given him his new name, and for the first time since the first of November, Wormtail's paw did not hurt. _I wonder what this would look like in my human form,_ he thought briefly before reminding himself that he was not likely to have a human form ever again. _Damn Sirius and his damn plans_. "Are you ready for ice cream now?" Arthur continued when Percy had carefully picked up his new pet in both hands.

"But I have a rat," said Percy confusedly.

"I think you can have both."

"_Really?"_ Even Wormtail had to admit that Percy's delight was relatively cute, but his affection for his new "master" lessened somewhat when the boy refused to share his ice cream cone on the grounds that rats should eat rat food, or at least something healthier than ice cream. Arthur agreed that it might be best if Scabbers shared the feed Percy's mother conjured for the chickens.

_Chicken feed. Wonderful. I should have been more careful when I chose a family. Though beggars can't be choosers…_ In addition, Wormtail was beginning to suspect that Percy and Arthur were not only wizards, but Weasleys. And the Weasley family was something of a prominent pureblood family. Any news of the Dark Lord would surely reach Wormtail's ears if he became the pet of Percy Weasley. _I might even find out what happened when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named tried to kill Harry._

Arthur took Wormtail from Percy's arms so that Percy could use the whole of his concentration to operate the Floo Powder he took from the jar next to the ice cream shop's fireplace. "The Burrow!" Percy yelled.

"The Burrow!" Arthur repeated a second later.

Percy, Arthur, and Wormtail were greeted by a short, round woman with a head full of bright red hair and an arm full of months-old infant. "Arthur, Percy-- what's that!"

"It's my new pet, Mummy," Percy explained with a slight tremor in his voice. "His name is Scabbers." Percy's mother sent a blazing look at Arthur, which was not lost on Percy. "You said I could have a pet," he whispered.

Wormtail watched as the woman's heart melted. "So we did," she agreed. "So we did."

"He's very smart," added Percy, stepping forward to allow his mother to see his new acquisition.

"I'm sure he is, but keep him away from Ginny until she's a bit older." The mother shifted Percy's younger sister in her arms. "Let your father put him out with the chickens for now, and go wash your hands. And can you bring the twins down here to eat?"

"Yes, Mummy," said Percy obediently, and as soon as he had gone out of sight up a crooked staircase, the woman rounded on her husband.

"Arthur, I know we agreed that he could have a pet, but why pick one up off the street?"

Arthur shook his head. "It's what he wanted, Molly. I tried to talk him out of it, but he had his heart set on this one. I turned to talk to Minister Wimple, and when he'd gone, Percy was in love. I couldn't say no. Because of my politics, he's spent half his life in safehouses and running away from Dark wizards, and he barely knows me. I couldn't tell him--"

"All right." Molly's voice softened drastically. "It's not your fault, not any of it, you know. He came out of it all right. They all did. We were lucky."

"Nonetheless, Percy was the one born at exactly the wrong time and into exactly the wrong situation. If he'd been older he would have been at Hogwarts and if he'd been younger he would have been oblivious. And I've looked at the rat. He's perfectly safe. We'll just keep an eye on him for a few days."

The melancholy attitude abated. "Need I remind you that we have five children under the age of six to keep an eye on?" she asked in a challenging but teasing way.

Arthur nodded smartly. "Right. So how about we get started on Scabbers' probation right away by letting him stay in the kitchen instead of outside. I'm sure Percy will want him upstairs sooner rather than later."

Molly agreed, and Wormtail had no sooner been placed in a newly conjured box than Percy returned drawing two identical three-year-old boys by the hand. "Look!" yelled one. He pulled free of his brother's grip and scrambled over to the box. "Gnome?" he asked confusedly.

"Rat," corrected his father. "Come on, Fred. Sit down."

"No!"

"Yes!"

Both twins were wrestled, laughing, into their seats. This was obviously a routine occurrence. Meanwhile, Molly vanished and returned with yet another child, a baby who by Wormtail's estimate was about the same age as Harry. "Here's Ron," she announced as she placed the boy in a highchair. He wore a bib that matched the one Harry had been given by Dumbledore on his first Christmas: _Hogwarts 1998._

Wormtail's head swam as he watched the family. _Ginny. Ron. Fred. Percy. Arthur. Molly. What's the other twin's name? And there are two boys already at Hogwarts?_

The next two weeks passed in a blend of routine and interest. Almost instantly, Wormtail grew to hate the tow-headed twins and their grabbing hands and loud play. Molly was constantly reprimanding Fred and George, George and Fred, that's Percy's rat, don't touch, but the boys were unwilling to listen. Arthur had no ability to discipline them whatsoever because the two were natural born comedians who never failed to make their father laugh. Their alleged games reminded Wormtail of the stories that had always been told of young James and Sirius.

Sirius' voice bounded into Wormtail's mind. " . . . .So, James' Mum had told him he couldn't touch the cake, and he asked if I could come over to play. His Mum said yes, hoping I'd keep his mind off the cake he couldn't have, but then he pretended to push me down the stairs and when his Mum came over to make sure I was all right, he ran into the kitchen and cut the middle part out of the cake and covered it up with frosting. We hid under the covers of his bed and ate the cake, and it was the _best_ cake I've ever had, but I thought we'd be punished for the rest of our lives. But his Mum just _laughed_ . . . ."

George pinned Wormtail's legs to his side while Fred pulled his tail. _I wish You-Know-Who had gotten to them. I hope they keep following in James and Sirius' footsteps._ He squawked in pain. _Hate Fred and George. Hate James and Sirius. _At last, Percy overheard the twins and came pattering into the kitchen. He wrenched his pet from his brothers' grasps. "HE'S MINE!" Percy bellowed angrily. "MINE, MINE, MINE! STAY AWAY!" The twins, as always, only laughed as Percy stalked upstairs to his room with Wormtail under one arm.

"You should stay here," Percy informed Wormtail when he had made certain that the rat had not been too badly hurt. "Especially since I'm going to school after Christmas." Percy sighed pensively. "Mother said I didn't have to go because I only just turned six last week. I could start next year. But she really wanted me to go this year, I could tell. And I heard her talking to Father, and she said she was worried I didn't soc-- socialive, or something, enough because I lived in safehouses." A pout began to flower on the small face. "It's not like I _asked_ to stay in safehouses. I didn't want to. They were always telling me to be quiet. Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, or they'll come and kill the twins." _You say that like it's a bad thing._ "That must be what school is like, too."

Percy's monologue was interrupted by the cheerful greeting of a young teenager. "Talking to yourself, little brother?"

"Charlie!" Percy exclaimed, and jumped to his feet. "I thought you weren't coming until tomorrow."

Charlie looked Percy over, eyes twinkling. "Maybe it's good that you're going to school after Christmas. You need to work on the days of the week."

Percy suddenly tensed. "I know the days of the week," he protested as if Charlie had accused him of something very terrible. "Sunday-Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday-Friday-Saturday!"

Charlie chuckled. "I was just teasing, Perce. I know you'll be the smartest in your class. It's good that they're opening the schools again. You'll be ready when it's time for you to go to Hogwarts."

Percy again looked like he might pout. "You'll be gone by the time I have to go."

"That's true," Charlie agreed.

"So I'll have to go all by myself."

"It's a long time off. You'll be ready to get away from all your brothers by then."

"I'm ready to get away from the twins now," Percy said sullenly, causing Charlie to laugh once more.

"Then you'll like them better when you go away."

"I couldn't like them less."

"What did they do?"

"They pulled Scabbers' tail!" Percy pointed at Wormtail.

"Scabbers?"

"He's my rat," Percy explained.

Charlie walked around his little brother to inspect the rat. "He's a good rat," Charlie said seriously.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now come downstairs and say hello to Bill." Percy fairly skipped from the room, and for the next several days Wormtail was blissfully freed from a six-year-old's ramblings and two almost-four-year-olds' tactics of torture. He was, however, dragged downstairs on Christmas morning, and he sat with Percy in a corner of the kitchen and watched as Molly set to work on a veritable feast that he knew he would not be allowed to share.

"Charlie! Bill!" Molly called as she magically shot a sack of potatoes out of their skins. "Come in here, please. Can you set the table?"

"Yes," they chorused, and ran to obey her command. They paused in the entrance, though, and stared at the piles of food.

"Mum, this much food would feed Dumbledore's whole army for a month," Bill announced. Wormtail nearly slipped from Percy's lap when he got his first real glimpse of Percy's oldest brother. Probably a Hogwarts sixth-year now, and would have been a first-year when Wormtail himself had been a sixth year. He had a vague memory of Sirius-- _damn Sirius!_-- convincing this Weasley, and his lot of friends, that if they collected one hundred suits of armor in the same room, the suits would be so happy at being reunited that they would give the group a book containing seven years' worth of exam answers. The first-years had spent a good many hours in detention.

"It's my first Christmas with all seven of my children," Molly lightly retorted. "And the first Christmas with You-Know-Who gone. I think that's worth celebrating. Don't you?"

"Merlin watch over Harry Potter," Charlie agreed.

"He certainly needs it," Molly said almost darkly. "The Daily Prophet says he's to be raised by Muggles."

"Yeah, I remember his mother was Muggle-born. It was a big deal when she was Head Girl," Bill agreed as he placed plates around the table.

"That was your second year?" Molly asked.

"The last year before Charlie came and made my life at Hogwarts a misery," said Bill with a grin.

Charlie swatted at his brother's head with a pile of napkins, but then raised his eyes to meet Bill's. "Could you tell? That she was that special?"

Bill nodded. "Yes, Charlie, it was perfectly obvious that she was going to marry the Head Boy and they were going to have a son who would defeat You-Know-Who."

"Bill! It's Christmas!" Molly reprimanded.

"Yes, you have 364 other days a year to make fun of me," added Charlie.

"Actually, it _was_ obvious she was going to marry the Head Boy," Bill admitted. "They tried to keep it quiet, so naturally the whole school knew. They were so good at everything-- larger than life-- the day we got the news at school, I don't think anyone who remembered them was surprised that they'd been the ones to bring the Dark Lord down. The really weird thing was Sirius Black. He was James Potter's best friend. He and Pettigrew and Potter and another one, Lupin, were always together. Black being Dark-- it doesn't make any sense."

Molly shuddered. "I can't believe you went to school with that boy for two years."

"Went to school with him and idolized him," Bill agreed. "Those first two years, all any of us ever wanted to be was him."

"Don't say that!" Molly snapped.

"But it's true. He was smart and good at Quidditch and everyone liked him. All the girls in the school threw themselves at him. I mean, he'd walk into a room and girls would walk into walls."

"There's more to life than being handsome and popular," Molly growled. "I hope you understand that."

"He _was_ more than handsome and popular. He looked out for all the younger Gryffindors. He was protective. He was funny. He was really, genuinely nice. He _deserved_ to be popular."

"Obviously not."

Bill finished setting the table. "I'm just saying it doesn't make sense that he'd go out and murder thirteen--"

Molly turned sharply to look at her sons. "Bill!" she snapped, and gestured at Percy, who had been taking in the entire conversation with wide eyes.

Percy, sensing that he was the reason the conversation had been stopped, looked at his mother with eyes that seemed out-of-place on a six-year-old. "I know about Sirius Black, Mother," he said distinctly. "He murdered twelve Muggles and a wizard named Peter Pettigrew, who Bill just said was his friend at school, with one curse. They said he was You-Know-Who's second-in-command. And now he's in Azkaban. The wizard prison. Forever. With the dementors. He'll probably go mad. If he isn't already."

Charlie, Bill, and Molly stared at Percy, who was methodically stroking Wormtail with one hand. In the face of their stares, he spoke again. "Over the entrance to Azkaban, it says 'Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.' That's from the _Divine Comedy_ by Dante Alighieri."

"Yes, Perce, you're definitely going to be at the top of your class when you start school," Charlie broke the silence. Then he gave his brother an especially odd look. "Since when do you call Mum 'Mother?'"

"Since I turned six," said Percy firmly. "I'm not a baby anymore."

Charlie and Bill were kind enough to refrain from bursting into laughter. Wormtail was not so generous, but because he was a rat no one could reprove him. _My young master is most definitely certifiable. The whole lot of them need to be checked into Saint Mungo's. The twins are natural sadists, Charlie's just thick, Bill admired Sirius even after Sirius landed him in detention, and Percy . . . where to start . . . ._

_I hate Bill for liking Sirius. And James and Lily. He had no right to like them. They were mine. And I liked them and now I hate them because I'm stuck here pretending to be a rat and they aren't._

_If James and Lily had just let Dumbledore be their Secret-Keeper, I wouldn't have to live on rat food._

_If Sirius hadn't chickened out of being Secret-Keeper, I wouldn't have to let a six-year-old put his hands all over me and ramble about how he's nervous about school._

_If they hadn't drawn so much attention to themselves, Bill wouldn't have known about them and I wouldn't have had to listen to that stupid tribute when I was trying to forget. If I have to spend the rest of my life as a rat, the least I deserve is to forget._

Wormtail sulked for the rest of the day. The lowest point came when the meal commenced with a toast to "Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived." The sole high point came when baby Ron, upon noticing the creature staring at the spread on the kitchen table, threw him most of the food within his reach.

Wormtail decided that Ron had potential.

When Percy marched off to school, Wormtail was allowed to spend most of his days sleeping undisturbed on or in Percy's bed. He was pleased to find that Percy was willing to let him sleep there at night as well, curled up against Percy's soft, warm, pliant body. It felt mildly like pedophilia, but Wormtail could not bring himself to care.

_Having a pet rat that's actually a man sleep in your bed is hardly worse than being forced to pose as a rat because your allegedly brave alleged friend couldn't bring himself to be Secret-Keeper for his so-called best friend._

It was terribly annoying when Percy insisted on doing his homework aloud, and then insisted on checking it over and over until one of his parents took it away and ordered him to a meal or to bed.

It was even worse when Percy, deprived of schoolwork, began to play with the toy figures of dragons that Charlie had sent him from Hogwarts. The game and the narration were always the same: "Run, run, hide under the bed. Be quiet, be quiet, You-Know-Who will hear and he'll kill your brothers. He'll kill your brothers and it will be your fault and your parents will feed you to the big dragon because you killed your brothers. Even though they're twins and there's an extra one. Be quiet, be quiet, even though it's dark and you can't see what might be creeping around you and you don't know who's there and you don't know where Mother is, be quiet, be quiet, that's the rule and if you break the rule you die."

_SHUT UP!_ Wormtail screamed mentally, but it never had any effect. _I can't believe that once I felt sorry for little gits like you who were stuck in safehouses. I joined You-Know-Who because that was the winning side, because I could help people from the winning side, and now I'm stuck as a rat for my trouble. _

Wormtail's loathing of Percy grew as days and years passed. He felt a surge of gratitude toward his young master just once, on the day that Fred used Ron's puffskein for Bludger practice and the little animal died of massive internal and external trauma. _There but for the grace of Percy go I,_ Wormtail was forced to admit. Ron sat on the steps of the Burrow and cried all day long. Little Ginny, after vain attempts to comfort her youngest older brother and usual playmate, apparently decided that she could do nothing but cry with him, and the two of them gave Wormtail the worst headache he had ever had in rat form.

Percy grew ever more focused on his studies in anticipation of making the leap to Hogwarts, and he no longer demanded that Wormtail act the least bit magical. He left off playing with his model dragons, and he left off confiding to Wormtail all of his fears.

Wormtail slept all the more. _I deserve it for putting up with Percy_, he told himself.

And then one day, the inevitable happened. Percy came into his room and shut the door. In one hand, he held a letter. Even in his lethargic state, Wormtail recognized the seal. Hogwarts.

For the first time in a long time, Percy picked up his pet and sat down, stroking his fur. "I'm going to Hogwarts next month, Scabbers," he began. "_We're_ going. The letter says I can bring an owl or a cat or a toad, but Father says they'll let me bring you instead. And I've always wanted to go, you know. As long as I can remember. I want to be Head Boy, like Bill was. Remember how happy Mother was when he got the badge?

"But I've also always worried. Bill and Charlie had each other, and the twins will go together, and Ron and Ginny are only a year apart. But I'm going alone. Charlie just graduated, and the twins aren't coming for two whole years. Not that I'm all that eager for them to come. Just imagine how much trouble they'll cause without Mother around. And the professors will probably blame me.

"Charlie says everyone will remember him and if anyone bothers me to say he'll beat them up. He says that since I'm starting the year after he leaves I'll get his old dormitory, and he can tell me all its secrets. All the dormitories are a little bit different he says, and he says his is the best, because he started the year after James Potter and his friends left, so they did things to the room even the professors couldn't figure out--"

Wormtail froze beneath Percy's hand.

"Are you all right, Scabbers?"

Wormtail made a concentrated effort to relax.

"Of course, that's assuming I get into Gryffindor at all. What if I don't? What if I'm the first Weasley who doesn't make it into Gryffindor?"

_Gryffindor will take anybody. Believe me_, Wormtail sneered to himself.

"Do I have to commit ritual suicide or something? Do I just go back home?"

_Do you shut your mouth for once? No, no chance of that._

"And on the day the Express comes, Father will be at work and Mother can't handle Fred AND George AND Ron AND Ginny in a station full of Muggles. Who knows what they'd do. The Ministry would have to do a million memory charms. So Charlie's going to drop me off on his way to Romania. He's going to work with dragons. Did I tell you that? I wonder if I'll be the only one there without parents. Probably not. Loads of kids my age don't have parents at all because of You-Know-Who. And there might be people there whose parents worked for You-Know-Who. That's evil."

_Hey, watch it, you sanctimonious little git! I hope they Sort you into Slytherin. You'd be eaten alive, or maybe not, what with that stupid plan you have to be Head Boy._

"I'm really scared."

_Then die of fright already. What did I ever do to deserve to listen to this? Other than accidentally kill a few people_. Wormtail cocked his head. It had been years since he had thought of that.

"I don't think I'm worthy of living in James Potter's old dormitory."

_I don't think I am, either._

Neither Percy's doubts nor Wormtail's prevented the pair from going to meet the Hogwarts Express, escorted, as promised, by Charlie. As soon as they stepped through the barrier to Platform 9 ¾, a boy wearing Gryffindor colors and carrying an expensive broom hailed Charlie. "Weasley! Did you flunk out?"

"No, no. I'm here to drop off my brother." He pulled Percy forward. "This is Percy. It's his first year. You'll look out for him for me?"

"The whole team will," the boy promised. He turned to Percy. "You like Quidditch?"

"Of course," said Percy, clearly confounded that anyone would ever ask such a silly question.

"He's good, but don't count on him trying out," said Charlie. "He's got his heart set on being another Bill. Head Boy."

After a few more minutes of discussion, Percy, his trunk, and Wormtail were loaded onto the train. Percy's first day was smoothed by the Gryffindor Quidditch team, which made good on its promise to look after its former captain's little brother. Heads all around the Great Hall, which looked just as Wormtail had remembered, turned to see who was so important that the defending champion Quidditch team was swarming around him. In particular, Percy attracted the attention of another first-year, a dark-haired boy who was burly even at age eleven.

"Oliver Wood," he introduced himself. "Do you know all of the Quidditch players already?"

Percy nodded. "Percy Weasley." The boys shook hands. "My brother was captain last year, but he's graduated now."

Oliver's mouth fell open. "Charlie Weasley?" he asked. "I read about him. He was so good he could have played for England, but he wanted to go to _Romania_ instead." The boy's face was a mix of disgust and confusion.

Percy shrugged. "Charlie likes dragons." Oliver looked at Percy as if he were speaking Swahili. "You're going to play Quidditch, then?" Percy added.

"Yes. Keeper," Oliver declared firmly. He lowered his voice. "And I want to be captain."

Percy lowered his voice as well. "I want to be Head Boy."

"Charlie Weasley's brother wants to be Head Boy, not Quidditch captain?"

"Our brother Bill was Head Boy," Percy explained.

Oliver briefly looked thoughtful. "That's a lot to live up to."

"Tell me about it," Percy agreed. But his ego must have been inflated by the attention Charlie's friends had shown him, for he added "I think I can do it."

"Gryffindor?" asked Oliver.

"Obviously. You?"

"Obviously."

Percy smiled. "So we'll be Quidditch captain and Head Boy, and we'll win the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup and everyone will think that we were meant to live in James Potter's old dormitory."

Oliver looked floored. "Really?"

"Really. Charlie started the year after he left and left last year. He says it's full of secrets because James Potter and his friends were so clever that Filch and the professors and everyone else didn't realize what they'd done to it."

"Wow," Oliver whispered. "We _have_ to win the House Cup and the Quidditch Cup. We _have_ to."

"We will."

The two had distracted each other (and nauseated Wormtail) so well that nearly all of their classmates had been Sorted before their faces became tinged with green as they anticipated their turns beneath the hat.

"WEASLEY, PERCY!" Percy, still clutching Wormtail, resolutely approached the hat. It barely grazed his brow before sending him off to Gryffindor. The Gryffindors, clearly remembering Charlie and Bill, screamed with delight.

Nothing at all like Wormtail's own Sorting.

He remembered hoping his luck would hold out. He had been lucky to run into James on Platform 9 ¾, and lucky that James remembered that they had met two years earlier at a Quidditch festival, and lucky that James' friend Sirius was not possessive to the point that he tried to keep James from making other friends, and lucky that they and Remus had ended up in a boat together as they journeyed to the castle. There was something deeply satisfying about a boat intended for four that was filled by four, with no one missing and no one left out.

He had been lucky that, though he had been nervous, he had managed not to stammer. He had been lucky not to trip getting on or off the Hogwarts Express. He had been lucky that it had not rained. He had been lucky that Remus, who was clearly a member of an old wizarding family and therefore mysterious in that no one had ever heard of him, had been the focus of Sirius' and James' attentions: too much attention placed on Wormtail might have led him into saying something stupid, and prevented him from ever making friends.

And when he half-stumbled up to the Sorting Hat-- _so much for not tripping!_-- he could only hope for Gryffindor, where Remus and Sirius had already been Sorted and where James was sure to go.

The Sorting Hat dropped down over his eyes, and an instant later an odd voice whispered in his ear. "I wasn't expecting you! I didn't even know Roberta Pettigrew _had_ a younger brother-- but of course, you hadn't been born when I Sorted her. She was in Ravenclaw, and she did quite well there. You're smart, but you seem to work for what you get, not coast on your natural intellect like so many Ravenclaws do. I don't think you'd quite fit. You're loyal enough for Hufflepuff, but that's Ravenclaw's rival house. Will that be a problem?"

_No_, thought Wormtail half-heartedly.

"You can't lie to me, you know," said the hat smartly. "I can see inside your mind. Now, Helga would have loved to have you, but she never would have placed you in her house if it made you unhappy. A sweet, kind woman. All of the four agreed that a wizard's finer qualities were more likely to come out if he was happy, mind you. Would you relax so I can get a better look?"

_This is taking too long,_ Wormtail thought frantically.

"Nonsense. We have at least two that last a minute every year. And the record was over an hour. Now relax."

_HOW CAN IT TELL ME TO RELAX? RELAX, RELAX, IT'LL NEVER THINK YOU'RE BRAVE IF YOU DON'T--_

"Bravery! So that's it. You have friends in Godric's house? Well, I think that would be fine." The hat chuckled. "I know you've had some trouble making friends. And it's quite brave of you to keep trying. This isn't a perfect match, but is it what you want?"

_Yes!_

"You might have to work extra-hard, but I think Godric would be pleased. We'll go with GRYFFINDOR!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

In the present, the Sorting Hat had suggested that Oliver Wood join Percy and Wormtail at the Gryffindor table. Both Oliver and Percy were relieved and excited. Wormtail, for his part, was annoyed that Percy was not about to share the opening feast with his pet.

_I hope one of you obnoxious little brats tried to trick the Sorting Hat like I did_, he thought. _Nothing good comes from being raised outside your true house. If I'd been in Hufflepuff, I'd've had friends as loyal as I was. I was so damn loyal that I went over to the Dark Side thinking I could protect Sirius and Remus and James from there. And I ended up as a rat because Sirius was so far from loyal he wanted to kill me for my trouble. James was so far from loyal he put his friends in danger by making a big deal out of himself. And Remus was so far from loyal Sirius couldn't see he wasn't the spy! Damn them all! Damn Percy for bringing me back here._

Percy and Oliver trudged upstairs with two other boys-- both Muggle-born and of only marginal magical talent-- to the room that had once belonged to Wormtail. He shuddered when he caught a glimpse of the ceiling and saw that the boldly written **MWPP** was still visible. Sirius had reinforced the spells protecting it every day in the hopes that no amount of cleaning would ever remove them.

But that was a thing of the past. After his initial shock, Wormtail realized that he could eat and sleep as easily here as anywhere else. And eat and sleep he did. The four boys did little to disturb him. Percy was determined to be a prefect and spent his time with those from other houses who wanted the same. Oliver ate, breathed, and slept Quidditch. The other boys had so little magical ability that they spent most of their time trying to keep their grades up or gawking at their surroundings. They would never have been admitted to Hogwarts before the war had gutted the wizarding population. It was rare for all four boys to be present in the room at the same time; it was even rarer for all to be present and awake (or asleep) at the same time. None of the four were close friends, though they liked each other well enough, and the chance that a party or game would break out in the room was slim.

When Wormtail looked forward to the end of each school year, then, it was not because he was bothered by the room and certainly not because he wanted to go home to the dreadful Burrow and the dreadful twins. No, he looked forward to the end of each school year because he enjoyed few things quite so much as watching Oliver's and Percy's reactions to the news that, once again, Slytherin had taken possession of both the Quidditch Cup and the House Cup. The two always wore matching hang-dog looks as they packed their trunks and prepared to catch the Hogwarts Express.

"I can't believe it," Percy said as the two looked around their room for the last time as fourth-years. "When my older brothers were here, Gryffindor always won. When I came, it started losing."

"It's not your fault," said Oliver tightly. "It's mine. You haven't been made a prefect yet, but I was Quidditch captain-- and--" His voice broke off as if Gryffindor's failure had been too horrible to contemplate.

"You had injuries," Percy broke in bracingly. "Bad luck. And the _twins_! That's a lot to deal with." Wormtail silently agreed. Even he could hardly wish the twin terrors on Oliver.

"Good beaters, they are. Exceptional. Good friends, too. But sometimes I wish I could get them to take Quidditch seriously!"

Percy laughed humorlessly. "You'll never get them to take anything seriously." He sighed. "McGonagall will never make me a prefect, not with the way they break every rule and lose all the points we get."

Oliver rolled his eyes. "Even if you weren't the most obvious choice for a prefect for our whole year, she'd give you a shot. If anyone can control them, you can."

"Next year," said Percy firmly. "Next year, we'll be more than halfway through, and we'll be expected to be leaders. We'll have more authority and WE'LL WIN THE CUPS!"

"The Express is coming soon, you know," called a voice from the corridor.

"Thanks," called Percy and Oliver as one. "See you next year," they added to each other before seeking out their separate traveling partners.

As always, Wormtail found it easy to fall asleep in the presence of Percy's dull, obedient, intelligent friends. He slept most of the summer away, and was most displeased when he was jarringly snatched from his resting place one sunny afternoon.

"Guess what, Scabbers?" asked Percy. Wormtail looked at him, annoyed. Percy had not spoken to him since before starting Hogwarts, and Wormtail had not missed the chatter. "You're getting a new owner. I have a new pet. A real pet. An owl!"

Wormtail had to admit that it was slightly humiliating to be exchanged for an owl. Then he fell back to sleep, pondering his fate. _If this 'new owner' thinks I'm going to do tricks or play games or do anything but eat and sleep, he ought to think again!_

And then Wormtail was shaken awake for the second time within five minutes. "Scabbers? Are you alive?" _That's Ron._

"Be careful, will you, Ron? I've had him for a long time. He's old and he needs to sleep a lot."

"I guess," said Ron in a dejected tone. "The letter says an owl or a cat or a toad," he added after a moment.

"I know it does," agreed Percy. "But I always had Scabbers with me before this year, and it was never a problem. I'm a prefect. Would I ever give you something that was against the rules?"

"No," said Ron.

"No. Shouldn't you get ready? We'll be leaving in a few days and it's always hardest to pack well your first time."

"I'll remember that," said Ron with some sarcasm in his voice.

"Good," said Percy, and he left.

Ron glanced down at the rat on his bed. "So, Scabbers, you're mine now." He sighed. "Everyone else in my class is going to Diagon Alley to buy supplies, but I'm just sitting here in my room while my brothers give me their old wands and robes and rats. The other first-years are going to see me and laugh. I wish we had more money--" He interrupted himself as if he'd said something horrible. "Did that sound ambitious? I really don't want to sound ambitious! You end up in Slytherin if they think you're ambitious, and I _am_ from an old family-- what would I do if I ended up in Slytherin?" _Where have I heard this before? _If Wormtail had not been so tired of hearing his young "owners" explain their feelings to him as if he were a stupid animal who did not understand but somehow cared, he would have rolled his eyes.

"Fred and George said something about wrestling a troll to get into the house you want. How do you not look ambitious when you're trying to wrestle a troll? Isn't it ambitious just to try to live through wrestling a troll before you've learned any spells at all?"

_He thinks the Sorting is about wrestling trolls? That sounds like something Sirius-- damn Sirius! He ought to be the one stuck here listening to this garbage. At least he's safely rotting in Azkaban. Wonder is he's mad yet? Merlin, that's morbid. He must be mad. He was most of the way along before the Hit Wizards ever caught up with him._

Presently, the twins' voices drifted up the stairs of the Burrow. "Fred? George?" called Ron.

Two identical faces appeared in the doorway. "Yes, ickle Ronniekins?" two identical voices asked.

"About the troll--"

"Ronniekins," said one twin in a very superior voice, "You can't keep asking us questions. You'll have an unfair advantage over everyone else."

"And we don't want that," the other twin agreed. "Besides, we're very busy with school staring next week. Essays to write--"

"You told Mum you wrote them the first week you came home," Ron interrupted.

Both twins burst out laughing. "Good one, Ron," one added through his giggles.

"We're just saying you should make it worth our while if we're going to baby-sit you."

Ron reluctantly reached beneath his Chudley Cannons bedspread and removed a handful of chocolate frogs. "I get the cards," he said warningly.

"Yeah, yeah, the cards. We're too old and wise and mature to care about the cards."

Ron muttered something derisive under his breath and unwrapped a frog himself, which he shoved underneath Wormtail's nose. Wormtail gobbled it up greedily. _At least Ron isn't all bad._

"You're feeding chocolate to Percy's rat? You know he won't like that."

"Scabbers is mine now. And about the troll, how do you not seem ambitious when you're trying to fight something you have no idea how to fight that's much bigger than you?"

The twins shook their heads in mock-sad unity. "You can't get Sorted into the wrong house. It's impossible. No use trying to trick things," one explained.

"How come you get a pet and we never did?" added the other.

"Because you'd _kill_ any animal you owned," said Ron bluntly.

The twins laughed. "We're about to fly over toward the Diggory place to see if Cedric's out practicing. Wood told us last year that he thinks Hufflepuff wants to make him their new Seeker, and we need a spy report. Want to come?"

"Yeah!"

"For a small favor."

Ron looked at them warily. "What?"

"How did you hide those chocolate frogs? We've looked in here dozens of times this summer."

Ron smirked. "That's between Charlie and me."

The twins looked at each other and held a silent conversation. "All right," said one. "Grab a broom and meet us in the back." Fred and George left, and Ron scrambled after them with Wormtail in one hand.

_What does he think he's doing? He's not going to take me up on a broom?_

But it seemed that he was. The three brothers had flown a short distance before Fred noticed that Ron had brought along a passenger. "What've you got him along for?" demanded Fred, poking at Ron to make him pay attention. _For once, something reasonable out of Fred's mouth_. Wormtail looked down grouchily. Should Ron let go, it would be a very long fall, and Wormtail could not seem to get to sleep while being lugged around like a bag of sweets. _Sweets. Maybe Ron will give me some more sweets._

"The last pet I left alone got used for Bludger practice," said Ron.

"Don't hold a grudge, Ronniekins. It's not attractive."

"Shut up."

They suddenly grew silent and pointed their brooms downward. Apparently, they had reached their destination. They abandoned the brooms beneath a bush and crept cautiously toward a pretty, and obviously wizarding, home. A few shouts reached Wormtail's ears, and if he had bothered to crane his neck, he would have seen two boys tossing about a marble obviously meant to simulate a Snitch.

"Looks like Wood was right," George muttered out of the corner of his mouth. He nudged Ron. "That prat with Diggory is the Hufflepuff Quidditch captain. He's a sixth year."

"It looks like they're doing a little pre-season training," agreed Fred. "Load of good it'll do them. It'll come down to Gryffindor and Slytherin."

"Unless we can't find a Seeker. Then it'll just be Slytherin. Again." George scowled.

"There has to be someone. There's got to be."

"Unless you want to de-age Charlie, I don't think there is."

"Maybe one of the second-years. Who knows how good they are? Since first-years don't make house teams," Fred companionably swatted Ron's shoulder, "sometimes you can't tell who's good and who's not. Our first year you and me and Alicia and Angelina were all there, but we weren't on the team. And then last year, we all made the team at least as reserves."

"Maybe all the Quidditch talent Gryffindor will have for the next decade got concentrated into our class . . ." Wormtail at last managed to fall asleep, and did not awaken until Ron was readying himself for bed. He noted that he had had an odd dream in which he had turned yellow. Daisies and butter? He shook his head, and realized that Ron was speaking to him.

"I dunno, Scabbers . . . you could sleep in the old frog tank . . . I'll put some sweatshirts in there for you . . ."

Wormtail squawked out loud and scrambled to Ron's bed, burrowing beneath the covers. _If he's going to carry me on a broomstick, he's at LEAST going to give me a decent place to sleep._

"Scabbers, you can't sleep in my bed."

_Wanna bet?_

"Well, I guess you can."

_Told you so._

"Good night." Ron climbed into bed with his new pet, and Wormtail curled against the warm body. Ron was going to be tall, was already about as tall as Wormtail had been as a human, but he was much younger and more gangly than Percy. He smelled of chocolate frogs and the sunny grass in which he and the twins had lain all afternoon. It was an oddly comforting scent to Wormtail.

It was a scent to which he grew endlessly accustomed in the next few days. Ron, it seemed, lived in terror that Fred would decide to use his rat as he had used his puffskein, and was therefore unwilling to leave Wormtail alone for more than a moment. Ron was cautious, though, and Wormtail found that he could sleep through the majority of the boy's antics. He trained himself to wake up at mealtimes, because unlike Percy, Ron believed that a rat should eat whatever he liked.

And to Wormtail's delight, he learned that Molly Weasley was a truly talented cook. _It's almost too bad we have to leave. It might have been nice to stay in the house with just Ron and Ginny and enjoy Molly's cooking._ But it was not to be. One evening, Wormtail received rather fewer table scraps than was his wont.

"You're enjoying it, Ron? I know it's your favorite," Molly asked anxiously.

"It's great, Mum," Ron replied obediently. His brothers chorused that yes, the food was excellent, and Arthur added that everything his wife cooked was wonderful.

"I just want Ron to enjoy his last night at home--"

"Before Hogwarts eats him alive!" interrupted Fred, or it might have been George.

"Hush," said Molly firmly. "Hogwarts does not eat anyone alive. I think it's rather a wonder that it's survived you two."

"Then why can't I go?" whined Ginny, who had been silent throughout the evening and had pushed her food about her plate. From his position next to Ron, Wormtail eyed the little girl's share of the meal.

"We've been through this before," Arthur took over for his wife. "Next year."

"But I do really well in school and I've been around magic my whole life. I'd do fine! I'll go right to the top of the class if you only let me go this year instead of next!"

"Eat, Ginny."

"I'm not hungry."

"Ginny, your mother worked very hard--"

"Scabbers can have it." Wormtail could hardly contain his delight as Ginny, before her parents could stop her, grabbed Wormtail in one hand and her plate in the other. The door slammed behind her with a bang.

Outside, Ginny unceremoniously dumped the contents of her plate to the ground near the front door and set Wormtail on top of it. Wormtail began eating ravenously. After a few minutes, the door slammed again and Ron appeared next to Ginny.

"Don't you feed him anything?" Ginny asked accusingly. "He's eating like you've starved him."

"He eats everything I give him," Ron protested. "Look how fat he's getting. Even fatter than he was when Percy had him."

"I guess," admitted Ginny.

"You have to say you're sorry to Mum."

Ginny's eyes flashed. "I don't _want_ to! I _want_ to go to Hogwarts!"

"It'll be your turn next year."

"I want to go now! Won't you help me? We'll tell them we're twins!"

"We can't be twins. You're too short."

"I'm not short. You're tall," Ginny argued petulantly. "And I want to go! You get to go! We've always gone to the same school before!"

"I know that," said Ron, sounding very awkward.

"You aren't going to miss me at all," Ginny accused.

"Er, yes I am." Wormtail nearly choked. _He didn't even try to make her believe him. Rather ungrateful after all the years they spent playing together like best friends-- ungrateful like Sirius!_

"Right. You get to go off and have adventures and learn magic and have a pet and I get to stay here all by myself."

"It might be fun to be an only child."

"I don't think so. I don't want to be an only child. I want--"

"To go to Hogwarts."

"And have adventures and learn magic and have a pet."

Ron looked at Ginny, whose eyes were round with tears, and then at Wormtail. "I guess you could have Scabbers," he said dubiously.

Food disposed of, Wormtail looked up at them. _No! I couldn't sleep in the little girl's bed! Or could I…? For a few years…. She's going to be so pretty when she grows a bit more… _Furious with himself for thinking such a thing, Wormtail nosed around, searching for crumbs that he might have missed.

Ginny was shaking her head. "No. You're going away, and there'll be all those other people there, and their parents will have just gotten them cats and owls… and, well, you need Scabbers to go with you."

"Right." Ron sounded relieved. "Gin?"

"What?"

"I _am_ going to miss you."

"Thanks."

"Really. I don't know anyone there, really. I might've met some of them a few times, but that's it."

"Percy and Fred and George?"

"Percy's a prefect. I don't think prefects talk to anyone but other prefects. And he'd spend half his time telling me off, anyway. The twins… it'd be like tagging along. They were a set and we were a set, you know?" Ginny began to cry. "DON'T CRY!" Ron shouted, horrified, and Ginny went back into the house carrying her empty plate.

Wormtail decided it was time to sleep.

He awoke when he nearly fell to the floor of the Hogwarts Express. Ron had just jumped to his feet; Wormtail must have been on his lap.

"Oh, you're going to fight us, are you?" asked a voice. Young. A boy whose voice had not yet broken; probably Ron's age.

"Unless you get out now," responded another voice.

"But we don't feel like leaving, do we, boys? We've eaten all of our food and you still seem to have some."

Wormtail opened his eyes in time to see a fat, dirty hand approaching the pile of sweets in which he seemed to be lying. _Ron would have given me some if I'd been awake! They're mine! _And with that, Wormtail bit the boy's finger.

He yelled loudly, and swung Wormtail in a circle. Wormtail clung on. _Same as the Slytherins when I was here, trying to take what isn't theirs--_ at, last, when his mouth filled with repulsive, bitter blood, he let go, and felt himself hit first a window and then the floor. _Ouch. May as well go back to sleep._ And he did.

To his horror, he next awoke in a dormitory. _I missed the feast! The Opening Feast! Ron could have woken me up!_ To reprimand Ron, Wormtail began chewing the boy's sheets. _You could have given me beef and chicken and pork and lamb and sausage and bacon and steak and six kinds of potatoes and--_ "Great food, isn't it?" Ron asked one of his roommates, as if to mock Wormtail further. "Get off, Scabbers! He's chewing my sheets."

The boys were asleep in no time, and Wormtail had no choice but to join them-- after noticing that the hangings of the bed in which he lay were a deep red in color, and that Ron, like his brothers before him, had indeed been Sorted into Gryffindor.

Living as Ron's pet at Hogwarts became an easy routine for Wormtail. Ron still insisted on taking his rat most everywhere, but he had given him a comfortable section of his bag in which to sleep the day away, and the bag was infinitely preferable to a jacket pocket or a hand. The Hogwarts food was as good as Wormtail had remembered it. Food and sleep, sleep and food, made for a not unhappy life.

One day perhaps a week into Ron's Hogwarts career, though, Wormtail was plagued by a troubling dream:

_Sirius was bouncing on his toes as if he were physically incapable of controlling his excitement. "I've got it! I've got it, I know what we have to do this time!"_

_James' mouth curled impishly upward as he tugged at his Gryffindor tie. "We're waiting."_

"_We steal his homework and blot out the right answers! Then we write in something ridiculous. For the question about blocking the leg-locker, we'll write 'It doesn't matter to me, I'm so uncoordinated the leg-locker wouldn't make a difference. Have you ever seen me play Quidditch? Or rather, pretend that I can play Quidditch? Besides, I think my time would be better spent learning to wash my hair than answering this question.' Well?"_

_James was laughing, perhaps more at Sirius' exuberance and sheer delight in his own ideas than at the words themselves. Wormtail laughed, too, because it was good to have a friend like Sirius who could formulate impossible schemes and make life endlessly entertaining. But the fourth member of the quartet was shaking his head. _

"_That's a terrible idea, Sirius. It would be horrible to make someone miss his first Hogsmeade weekend ever. Downright mean, and not something I want to do. Can you imagine how disappointing it would be?" Remus glared at Sirius, and Sirius, James, and Wormtail exchanged confused looks. Since when was Remus so protective of Slytherins? In particular, since when was he so protective of a Slytherin who never missed an opportunity to sneer at his pallor and apparent fragility? "Everyone knows," Remus ranted, "That he's one of the best students in our year. And everyone knows that the Defense Against the Dark Arts professors watch him because of all the obscure hexes he's supposed to be able to do. And everyone knows that he would never put his grades or his reputation in danger by doing something like that, especially right before the first Hogsmeade weekend. And everyone knows that if someone was going to set him up that way, that someone would be us. And we'd miss going to Hogsmeade."_

_The other three reluctantly exchanged glances admitting that Remus had a point. But Remus had not finished speaking. "So we get a sample of his handwriting so we can cast a forger's charm. Then we re-write the essay with the answers just a bit off-- or better yet, we write on the wrong topic, but a brilliant essay. So it looks like he thought he was so smart he didn't have to pay attention and didn't hear the assignment. We swap our parchment for his. He could still get punished for not doing his homework." A slow smile spread across Remus' face, and Sirius brightened once more._

"_That's brilliant! Brilliant! Oh, you had me going for a minute, but…" _

_The rest of the day was spent planning the trick, and the next afternoon, as the students sat in their final class for the week, Wormtail watched as Sirius carefully but assertively filtered through the pile of parchment that happened to sit next to his desk. James and Remus were trying to be subtle as they looked around the room. All of the third-years in the school were taking a special lecture of Defense Against the Dark Arts together in addition to their regular lessons, and with so many students in one place, it seemed certain that someone would notice Sirius' behavior._

_But Sirius had clever fingers and he had had thirteen years of practice pulling pranks. The switch occurred smoothly, and the four friends had only to count down the moments until freedom. Twenty minutes. Fifteen. Ten. Seven. Five. Four._

"_Professor?"_

_Wormtail's head shot up. Students almost never spoke in this class. _

"_Yes, Mr. Snape?"_

"_Professor, this is a little bit off your topic, but could a forger's charm be traced that way?"_

_The professor looked slightly startled by the question. "It's possible, yes."_

"_In that case," Snape rose from his seat as he spoke, prompting gasps from many of the other students, "Would you mind looking at my essay?" He had sauntered across the room and easily pulled his homework from the pile._

"_Mr. Snape, this is hardly an appropriate use of class time. I will look at your essay when--"_

"_You should look at it now." The room grew silent as death. No one ever interrupted professors so brazenly. _

"_Mr. Snape." The professor's voice was cold and clipped, but Snape did not flinch. "Your essay--"_

"_It isn't my essay. My essay is in Black's bag." He pointed accusingly at Sirius. "This is a forgery. Look at it. Would I ever write this?"_

_Casting a wary glance at an offended-looking Sirius, the professor unrolled the parchment. "This is a perfectly fine essay, but not on the correct topic. I distinctly told you--"_

_Snape lunged for Sirius' bag, and Sirius leapt to his feet. "Keep your slimy hand off of my bag!"_

"_You and your friends keep away from my work! I saw you going through the assignments when class started!"_

"_Don't ever accuse me of that again!" Sirius lunged at Snape, and half a dozen students, Remus among them, leapt to their feet to pull the two apart. The entire class was focused on the battle, or so Wormtail thought._

"_LOOK AT POTTER, LOOK AT POTTER!" bellowed a Slytherin named Avery. "HE'S TAKING THE ESSAY OUT OF BLACK'S BAG, SNAPE IS TELLING THE TRUTH!"_

_James had been caught red-handed, and Snape, sensing victory, voluntarily removed his hands from Sirius' throat. Slowly, the professor approached James and removed the parchment from his hand. "Mr. Potter."_

"_This is a misunderstanding," James began._

"_This was a set-up," Snape put in. "James Potter. Sirius Black. Remus Lupin. And--"_

"Harry Potter. Our new celebrity."

Wormtail blinked more fully awake inside Ron's bag. _Harry Potter?_ _That's right, the same age as Ron . . . Why haven't I seen him yet?_ Cautiously, Wormtail stood on his hind feet, and nearly toppled over in surprise at what he saw. James' doppelganger was seated right next to Ron. Predictably, the colors of Godric Gryffindor stood out at his throat.

His shock was doubled when he realized that Snape's voice had not been a part of his dream. He was still calling out names. In fact, he was calling out a roll. He was a professor!

And he had not washed his hair since Wormtail had last seen him.

When Snape had established that all students were present and accounted for, he began. "You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making." _But certainly not how to brew shampoo._ "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic." _You being allowed to teach at the finest school for the Light in the world is magic enough. _"I don't expect you will really understand the beauty . . ." _Still full of yourself._

Snape finished his recitation and promptly began to bully Harry_. Nothing like holding a grudge. Slimeball_.

But in retrospect, Wormtail became aware that Snape's bullying Harry was not such a bad thing. _If Harry hadn't lived… If Harry hadn't lived, I wouldn't be a rat._

_And I wouldn't get the small pleasure of SLEEPING THROUGH SEVERUS SNAPE'S CLASS!_

Wormtail returned to his habit of eating and sleeping, sleeping and eating. Ron's first year passed much as Percy's had, and Wormtail sometimes envisioned himself trapped in a never-ending cycle, handed from Weasley to Weasley as a pet, living in one Hogwarts dormitory after another. It mattered very little. He had gone to school with Percy for four years and never known that Percy was taking lessons from a former rival. Nothing would matter until word came that the Dark Lord was gaining power once more.

He had no fears of sleeping through the announcement. Unlike Percy's quiet roommates, Ron's roommates were friendly and active.

Wormtail's sleep was sometimes disturbed by Dean, a Muggle-born who insisted on expounding on the greatness of West Ham, whatever that might have been. (Many of his roommates wondered loudly.)

More frequently, it was disturbed by Seamus, who jumped out of his bed on Saint Patrick's Day yelling "Up the long ladder and down the short rope, to hell with King Billy and God bless the Pope, if that doesn't do, we'll tear him in two, and send him to hell with his red, white, and blue!" (His roommates had all rolled their eyes loudly.)

Then there was Harry. While he seemed to be slightly on the shy side, he had predictably become a Quidditch star, and this was cause for celebration each time Gryffindor won a match. (His roommates congratulated him loudly.)

And Wormtail's dear owner Ron was capable of shouting a diatribe on any subject. (His roommates argued or agreed loudly.)

The fifth roommate was blessedly quiet, and it was months before Wormtail realized that he was Neville Longbottom, Frank Longbottom's son.

And then one evening, Ron for the first time voluntarily left Wormtail alone in the dormitory. Wormtail found it disturbingly difficult to fall asleep. The bed was cold without the heat of Ron's body, and besides, Wormtail was hungry. He had to admit that he had become slightly spoiled by Ron's generosity with regard to food. Disgusted, Wormtail crawled across the bed and found that Harry was missing as well.

_The Dark Lord?_ No, more than likely Harry and Ron had simply gotten detention yet again, or were off causing trouble as James had once done. Yet, their roommates knew nothing of their whereabouts, and as the hours wore on Neville vanished as well.

Ron did not return until late the next evening. He was, predictably, bearing a pocketful of snacks for Wormtail, but Seamus, Dean, and Neville demanded his attention as soon as they saw him.

"RON!" they shouted in unison, and Wormtail could barely separate the wave of words that followed into separate questions and exclamations.

"Is it true what they're saying?"

"Did you see the Stone? Was it really there?"

"Is Harry all right?"

"Where _is_ Harry?"

"Hermione! What about Hermione? Is she back?"

"I heard you fought a living chess set!"

"I heard they tried to poison you!"

"Was Quirrell really working for You-Know-Who?" Wormtail froze in mid-chew. _Did I hear what I think I heard?_

"Is Dumbledore angry?"

"Have you been expelled?"

"Did you talk to the Minster of Magic?"

"Are you getting an Order of Merlin?"

Eventually, sitting on his bed in a position that indicated that he was more exhausted than any twelve-year-old had a right to be, Ron spoke. "Dumbledore says I'm not to tell you anything about what happened. But Hermione just went up to her dormitory and Harry's still in the hospital wing. He hasn't woken up yet, but Dumbledore says he will. But not in time to play against Ravenclaw. Wood asked McGonagall as I was coming up here and she said there was no way Harry could play and he oughtn't've asked."

"Come _on_, Ron," urged Seamus. "You could just nod. You could at least tell us whether Quirrell was really--" _Yes, you could! _Wormtail added.

"You know as much as I do. Probably more since you weren't stuck in the hospital wing. I didn't see anything after the chess set because I had to sacrifice myself."

"_Wow_," said the other three boys in awed unison.

"Are you all right now?" asked Neville softly.

"Yes. Just tired… and I'm really, really sorry about the body-bind. So's Hermione. She was so upset about it-- she'll probably tell you she's sorry about twelve times at breakfast tomorrow. And she might be crying when she does. So be prepared."

Neville squirmed. "You don't need to be sorry. I was wrong…"

"You did the right thing," said Ron bracingly. "Just at the wrong time." Ron yawned.

"You should go to sleep," said Dean unnecessarily, and Ron smiled.

"Reckon? But one thing."

"What?"

"What _is_ everyone saying around the school?"

Dean, Seamus, and Neville held a silent conversation while Ron waited in tired patience. Seamus, at last, spoke. "Well, the basic story is that you three knew that Quirrell was working for You-Know-Who, and you didn't have time to tell Dumbledore because he wasn't here. So you went to that forbidden corridor yourselves, and you chased him past that massive dog with three heads Neville was going on about a few months ago, and a plant that tried to eat you, and poison, and that chess set-- does it really knock you over the head when it captures you?"

"Yes," said Ron, drawing his hand unconsciously to his head and wincing.

"Does it hurt?"

"A little," Ron admitted reluctantly, and in spite of the dire situation Wormtail laughed to himself.

"Anyway," Seamus continued, "There was something about poison, and winged keys, and Harry throwing himself over the Stone to keep You-Know-Who off of it, and there are a lot of variations. That's most of them. Sure you don't care to confirm or deny?"

"Confirm," said Ron.

Seamus and Dean whooped with joy.

"I hope Hermione's all right," Ron said pensively as he crawled further onto his bed and set about arranging it for sleep.

"Was she badly hurt?" asked Neville, who sounded a bit frightened.

"No. Not really hurt at all. You know she's too smart to get hurt."

"But she was in the hospital wing all day," Neville protested.

"Madam Pomfrey never wants to let anyone leave, but Dumbledore decided we should leave together, tonight. Harry's got all kinds of people watching over him, but Hermione's all by herself." He looked toward the girls' half of the dormitory as if it were many miles away.

"Parvati and Lavender are cool," Dean defended, and Ron seemed to relax slightly.

Within minutes, the boys had called their sleepy goodnights to one another, and Ron, his red curtains pulled closely around his bed, sank to his pillow with a soft sigh. But instead of blinking into unconsciousness, he clutched Wormtail to his chest and breathed raggedly throughout most of the night.

_Oh yes . . . You-Know-Who may rise again yet! And You-Know-Who will have a better use for me than a frightened child's security blanket!_

Wormtail was elated. Ron's growth showed that he had been a rat for more than ten years, and the situation was getting old. He gasped for breath as Ron squeezed him even more tightly.

During the ensuing days, Wormtail was never out of Ron's pocket, and Ron was never away from his second-best-friend's side except when he was forced to go up to his dormitory at night. The Girl-- Wormtail had heard her named many times, but preferred to refer to her as the Girl simply because she annoyed him so thoroughly with her claims to cleverness and her bossy voice-- babbled as much as she always did, and several times let loose half-screams when Ron strayed too far from her line of sight. Ron was equally annoying; he had become as obsessed with her safety as she had become with his.

Ron's brothers spent more time with him than they had all year. Percy claimed to be doing his prefectorial duty, and the twins claimed to be testing their practical jokes, but their ruses were thin. Everyone, including Ron and the Girl, seemed to be convinced that the three friends had nearly died. _Then my Lord has nearly risen again._

Ron and the Girl settled down a bit after they were allowed to gush embarrassingly over Harry in the hospital wing for several minutes. And things began to look up even more when the day of the final feast arrived.

As usual, the Great Hall was decorated in the colors of Slytherin. Ron and the Girl were disappointed, but they did not seem to feel the wound as deeply as Wormtail's obsessive-compulsive-anal-retentive-full-of-his-own-importance former owner and his Quidditch-loving roommate always had. No, Ron and the Girl were lamenting Harry's absence, and when Harry appeared, they were delighted despite the green and silver décor. Harry himself was blushing because most of the students in the room were staring at him. _Not at all like James. James just loved attention. Damn James. Just one more who helped condemn me to eternity as a rat._

_Perhaps eternity._

_Perhaps not._

Wormtail felt almost cheerful when Albus Dumbledore rose to speak.

_Blah, blah, blah, fifty points to Gryffindor. Blah, blah, blah, fifty points to Gryffindor. Blah, blah, blah, sixty points to Gryffindor._

_Wait a moment. That's rather a lot of points, isn't it? _

_Oh, bother, where's the food?_

And then the world exploded. The students among whom Wormtail had lived for five years were screaming, shouting, laughing, crying, hugging, pounding tables, slapping backs, and shaking hands. Wormtail was squeezed against Ron's side as Ron accepted congratulations and gleefully pointed out the Slytherins who looked particularly miserable. Just as Percy and Oliver always had. Percy and Oliver were now hugging each other; it seemed that Oliver had accepted this as a temporary substitute for his coveted Quidditch Cup.

Wormtail lost his appetite, which was a shame, considering the feast that lay before him.

However, Molly Weasley cooked as well as she ever had. That was the sole benefit in returning to the Burrow. Even when Wormtail had been Percy's pet, he had not loathed the Burrow to this degree. Now, though, the news of the Dark Lord's impending return rested securely in his brain. Ginny's incessant prattle about meeting Harry Potter (she had gotten over missing Ron, Wormtail could not help but note) and at last beginning Hogwarts was more annoying than Wormtail would have thought possible. The twins were as violent as ever, and Ron had taken to moping about and wondering why Harry didn't write him. Ron sounded almost like a jilted lover until he realized that Harry had also failed to write the Girl.

Eventually, Ron was allowed to have Harry come and visit. Harry's arrival had the happy effects of cheering Ron and shutting up the smitten Ginny, who was auditioning without much success to be the next red-haired girl to die beside a Potter.

Time passed. Harry and Ron returned to Hogwarts. Luckily, the Girl was subjected to some kind of curse and Wormtail did not have to put up with her spontaneous dissertations. Besides, a series of attacks on Muggle-borns could only be a good sign.

_But Lily is in danger!_ he thought spontaneously one day before remembering that it had been a long time since Lily had been in danger. And it had been a long time since he had liked Lily. He vaguely recalled loving them-- Lily and James and Sirius and Remus-- and he recalled feeling confused and betrayed with slightly more clarity. Now, though, they were only objects from his past who were the cause of his present torment. Too many years spent living as an animal had taken a toll on his compassion.

He vowed to stop thinking of those that his human self-- his human self who he had forsaken, his human self whose name he could barely recall-- had befriended. He needed only think of the potential rise of the Dark Lord, not of those who had brought him to his current position. Dwelling on the past had never aided anyone. James and Lily were dead. Sirius was probably dead as well. And Remus might well have died by a sliver bullet. If he had not, he was likely far away, on the fringes of wizarding society.

But history, albeit recent history, did repeat itself. One night, Wormtail was left alone in the dormitory, and this time, no students remained. He did not learn until the next morning that Harry, who had inherited James' inclination toward heroism, and followed little Ginny into the legendary Chamber of Secrets. It seemed that Ginny had been tricked into doing the bidding of the Dark Lord by an enchanted diary he had written as a student. _And I thought the Marauder's Map was impressive!_

Wormtail was furious both that he had missed the celebratory feast and that the Dark Lord had not gained power in his present form. The summer began quietly, with all of the Weasleys fussing over Ginny, who had, at least superficially, recovered rather well. Molly and Arthur looked at their unexpected victory in the Daily Prophet's Grand Prize Galleon Draw as a heaven-sent blessing and promptly packed the entire family off to Egypt.

Ron, of course, would not have dreamed of touring Egypt without his loyal pet rat. Wormtail was even included in the official photograph of the happy winners; Ron placed him on his shoulder so that his arm would be free to wrap protectively around Ginny. Once the trip began, Wormtail saw curses and hexes that only served to remind him that the Dark Lord would one day rise again. _There is nothing to be gained from resistance._ These educational journeys were interspersed with less serious pursuits because Molly felt that Ginny was still too shaken by her ordeal to be allowed to go inside the more famous and dangerous tombs. In addition, the tour guides grew progressively more wary of the distinctive family when word got around that the twins had tried to shut Percy in a pyramid.

One day, as the family was traipsing through a pretty wizarding town, Arthur stopped dead in his tracks. Fred nearly plowed into his father from behind. "Dad?" Arthur seemed not to hear.

"Arthur?" Molly let go of Ginny's hand and pushed through her unruly gang of children, for all seven were present, and stood at her husband's side. "Arthur, what's wrong?"

"I ought to contact the Ministry," he muttered as if to himself. "How this could happen-- without my knowing--" Arthur gestured vaguely with a copy of the Daily Prophet.

"Are you going to buy that?" asked the proprietor of the newsstand.

"Here!" snapped Bill, and he tossed a coin in the man's direction. "Dad, what is it?" Bill was tall enough to read over Arthur's shoulder, and he did so.

"Well?" cried six younger siblings.

"Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban," Bill said.

Wormtail saw their reactions with numbed clarity.

Ginny stumbled, and grasped Ron for support. Ron looked struck dumb. The twins looked worried, but fascinated, and Percy and Charlie looked simply horrified.

"Escaped?" demanded Charlie. "No one escapes from Azkaban!"

"Someone forgot to tell Black that," said Bill. "Not that Black was ever much for listening to what he was told."

"Wait-- did you _know_ him?" put in Ron.

"They went to school together for two years. Same house," Percy answered in a typical know-it-all tone.

"But I thought that every Dark wizard ever-- at least the powerful ones-- came out of Slytherin!"

"It's polite to forget about Black," explained Bill with a shrug. "He was a Gryffindor, all the way."

Ginny moaned slightly under her breath, and this was enough to break her parents' trance. "We'll go back to our rooms," ordered Molly as she seized her daughter's hand once more. "Your father will contact the Ministry and see what he can find out. Well? NOW!"

The younger Weasleys obeyed, though Charlie hung back for a moment to collect a few extra copies of the newspaper.

The rest of the day, and indeed the rest of the vacation, passed in a blur for Wormtail. For the first time, he was glad for Ron's habit of holding him just a bit too tightly. It reminded him that he was, at least, alive.

He grew nauseated and found himself unable to eat. Ron responded by bribing him with all of the foods which he had learned were his favorites. Wormtail nearly cried (not that rats could) when he became aware of how much time and effort Ron had put into his pet._ He loves me… I'm a good pet… he'd never let Sirius… Sirius must be mad… stop worrying… Sirius is coming… Sirius knows I forgot about him and he'll make me pay…_

Such thoughts filled Womtail's days and nights until the family returned to England. Once there, Ron became determined to find a rat tonic. _Just what I need._

Ron got his chance on the day that he was reunited with Harry and the Girl. They found an appropriate store in good time.

"It's my rat," Ron announced as soon as the trio had reached the front of the store. "He's been a bit off-color since I brought him back from Egypt."

"Bang him on the counter." Thankfully, Ron did not take the caretaker's words literally. "How old is this rat?" _In his thirties. What? You don't remember thirties, you old hag?_

"Dunno. Quite old. He used to belong to my brother."

"What powers does he have?" _I once killed twelve people with one curse. But that was pretty much an accident._

Ron was unable to answer.

"He's been through the mill, this one," the caretaker continued.

"He was like that when Percy gave him to me!" _Sure. Blame it on Percy. _

The witch attempted to sell Ron a new rat, a truly magical rat, but as Percy had so many years before, Ron refused. He was just about to purchase a bottle of rat tonic when a cat, obviously part kneazle, snarled out of nowhere.

_Great! Sirius escaped and a kneazle that knows I'm an animagus after me!_ The sensible thing to do was run. When Ron at last caught him, Wormtail decided to go to sleep secure in the knowledge that things could not get worse.

He awoke the next day to the sound of the Girl's voice and the gentle rocking of the Hogwarts Express. "Professor R. J. Lupin," she said.

_Shit._


	2. Moony

**September 1, 1993 - June 10, 1994**

It had begun to snow. _It's only the first of September_, Remus thought with annoyance. _How often does it snow when it's practically still August? The Hogwarts term is just starting today. _But the snow continued to fall.

He was supposed to be on the Hogwarts Express, Remus remembered. _I have to get on the train! I'm going to miss the train. Fine way to start a new job. A professor is supposed to be more responsible than this. But how responsible can a werewolf ever be?_

The snow drifted higher, and Remus' exhaustion grew as he attempted to wade through it._ Too cold. Too cold. Miserable werewolf, deserve to die like this. Had more time than James and Lily and Peter, and didn't deserve it. Should have stayed closer. Might've saved them, might've died with them._ In his mind's eye, Remus saw first the werewolf approaching to bite him and then the ruins of Potters' house in Godric's Hollow.

There was a sudden thud, and Remus felt himself being pulled backwards. He sat with his head against the window. His eyes opened to thick darkness, and he realized belatedly that he had been asleep. It was, in truth, very cold. Were dementors present? That would explain the horrid images that had invaded his dreams, as well as the chill.

The training he had obtained before the fall of Lord Voldemort asserted itself, and he kept quiet until he could analyze the situation.

Children's voices split the air. The first words Remus could make out clearly were a young boy's: "There's something moving out there. I think people are coming aboard…" The boy's voice trailed off, and Remus reached for his wand. If the boy was correct and people _were_ coming aboard the train, then something was most seriously wrong.

As the boy had predicted, the door to the compartment opened. The new arrival was not, however, a threat; he proved as much by tripping as he climbed inside. The new boy apologized profusely and asked if anyone knew what was going on.

"Hullo, Neville," replied a third voice. Young and male, but not the same boy who had been looking out the window. Remus' first thought was to wonder whether or not this was Neville Longbottom, Frank's son. His second thought was that this most recent voice sounded somewhat familiar-- rather like a young James. His third thought was that he ought to be protecting these children and not speculating on whether or not he was breathing the same air as Harry Potter.

"Harry? Is that you?"

One of Remus' questions was answered.

"I'm going to go and ask the driver what's going on," a girl declared firmly. She opened the door and promptly tumbled backwards.

"Who's that?"

"Who's _that_?"

"Ginny?"

"Hermione?"

"What are you doing?"

"I was looking for Ron--"

"Come in and sit down--"

"Not here! _I'm_ here!"

"Ouch!"

Remus had his bearings now, and he was fairly certain that keeping his presence a secret was not necessary. It had been years since there had been Death Eaters lurking around every corner. He hardly needed to preserve the element of surprise, and the children needed someone to organize them just now.

"Quiet!" he commanded. His voice sounded hoarse even to his own ears; he had not spoken since before his transformation the previous night. The students obeyed, and fell still and silent. The sounds of Remus' movements seemed to echo in the compartment.

He needed light. Rather than simply cast lumos, he performed a freezing charm and lit a ball of flame in his hand. This light was easily controlled while he used his wand for other purposes, and, as an added bonus, it looked impressive. It would be best to get the students' respect in case they actually were in the midst of a crisis situation. The Hogwarts Express had stopped, and there must have been a reason.

"Stay where you are," he added. He struggled to his feet, still feeling tired despite the fact that he had obviously managed to sleep through much of the journey to Hogwarts. The door slid open before him. He had been correct; there was indeed at least one dementor present. In sleep, and having had a past that gave dementors much with which to work, he had sensed their presence before they had actually arrived. _What business does it think it has around a group of innocent children? _Harry, he could see, had already gone rigid and fallen from his seat.

Harry, like Remus, gave dementors a great deal to work with. Remus stepped over the boy's prone form.

"None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go," Remus commanded with hatred. The dementor did not move.

Now, faced with the full force of the dementor's power, he nearly staggered backwards. _James . . . Lily . . . dead . . . FOCUS!_ His education asserted itself once more. _Focus on one happy thought. One single memory to drive the dementors back._

He was tired, and he could not gather himself quickly. His brain flicked through several memories that he had used in the past-- receipt of his first Hogwarts letter; James and Peter and Sirius completing the Animagus transformation just for him; Harry's choice of 'Moony' as his fifth word. No, all of those felt too old and tainted just now. The presence of Harry reminded him all too clearly of how that part of his life had ended. His happiest recent feelings, then, had probably occurred the day Dumbledore had offered him the job he was about to begin.

X

It had been almost exactly a month before. The full moon had just set that morning, and naturally he was barely capable of caring for himself, let alone preventing the entry of the most powerful wizard in the world. He would not have refused Dumbledore entry in any case, but under ordinary circumstances he would have had the energy to adjust his surroundings. His flat was in the poorest corner of Britain's wizarding world, and no amount of effort on his part made it look like anything other than low-income housing. Even when he was busy with myriad odd jobs, or perhaps even a temporary salaried position, Remus did not move. Any spare money had to be laid aside to buy food and pay rent during the leaner months.

The flat was in the basement of a medium-sized, dilapidated building. Its only light came from a few windows near the ceiling. However, its location was infinitely convenient for a werewolf who was not eager to confirm suspicions as to his true nature. Remus had been able to create a small room beneath his flat in the very foundation of the building. Between chains and soundproofing spells, his transformations could occur in the relative comfort of his own home.

Had he had more energy, or had he expected Dumbledore's visit, he would have found a way to meet the Headmaster somewhere other than in his flat.

He generally tried not to come into contact with people he had known before the fall of Voldemort at all. Such people invariably looked at him with pity, and, by doing so, cheapened both past and present.

But he had no control over this situation, and he had long since resigned himself to the fact that Dumbledore always knew everything about anything about which he happened to want to know. So he simply invited Dumbledore inside.

"It is good to see you, Remus," said Dumbledore, and he sounded as if he truly meant those words. They sat down together at the wooden table which stood centered in the room. Remus reached for his wand, intending to aim it at the tea kettle. Dumbledore, though, held up a warning hand and set the kettle to whistling himself. "There's no need to play the good host. I rather deliberately visited you on a day I knew you would not be well. Poor manners on my part, I'm afraid."

"I'm always delighted to see you, Headmaster," Remus said, and both men knew that this was a vague untruth. Remus had last seen Dumbledore at Peter Pettigrew's funeral, nearly twelve years before.

"Likewise. But I suppose I'll come to the point so you can get some rest." Remus gave Dumbledore as questioning a glance as he could muster when his eyes were numb with weariness, and Dumbledore withdrew a photograph from his cloak. He placed it face down on the table, and looked up, his bright blue eyes piercing Remus'. "He's about to start his third year."

"Who is?"

Dumbledore laughed merrily. "Ah, yes, you and your friends were quite the mischief-makers when you were at Hogwarts. You never admitted to knowing _what_ I was talking about when I wondered how the winged horses wound up tethered in the wrong order one morning."

"I apologize for that, belatedly," Remus said, because he had to say _something_, and none of his partners-in-crime were around to feel betrayed. He did not look at the photograph.

"Apology more than accepted. No harm was done, and I'm sure the horses enjoyed the exercise. And the trophies needed polishing, as well." Remus still refused to overturn the photograph, or to look the least bit curious. Dumbledore chuckled. "I must be getting daft in my old age. I put that down upside down, didn't I? You'll hardly get the idea of what I'm talking about if you can't see it." Dumbledore leaned across the table and turned the picture over.

Remus was already resting heavily in his chair, and now he nearly fell out of it. He glanced around warily, looking for the Bludger that had just hit him in the chest. _James. No, not James. Harry. _

Harry, who Remus knew perfectly well had just celebrated his thirteenth birthday.

Years had only accentuated Harry's likeness to his father. He had the same messy black hair, and the same round glasses, and the same crooked smile as he embraced his friends. The three of them stood before the Hogwarts Express, smiling and waving at Remus. The boy seemed slightly familiar. He was obviously a Weasley, though Remus could not say how distantly he was related to the red-haired freckle-faced Weasleys he had known before dropping out of proper wizarding society. The girl reminded him of no one in particular, but it did strike him as odd that a wizarding child would have such a pronounced overbite when a shrinking spell could have corrected the problem in seconds.

"Is the other boy a Weasley?" Remus asked at last.

Dumbledore nodded, delighted that Remus had not persisted in pretending that Harry Potter was of no importance to him. "His name is Ronald. Ron, they call him. His parents are Arthur and Molly Weasley-- both Gryffindors, but before your time. Their eldest son-- Ron's eldest brother-- Bill, would have been a second-year when you were a seventh-year. Also in Gryffindor, but classes were rather large then."

"I do remember Bill, now that you mention it." The vibrant hair had made the boy instantly recognizable even if he had been five years younger than Remus and his friends. Besides, the young first- and second- years had been most useful targets for a well-timed prank. "What happened to him?"

"He grew up to be Head Boy, and then curse-breaker for Gringotts."

Remus raised his eyebrows. "That's sufficiently impressive."

"Another brother in that family will be Head Boy this year. But I didn't come here to talk to you about him." Dumbledore placed one long, bony finger against the image of the thirteen-year-old girl. "This is Hermione Granger. She's Muggle-born." That explained the teeth, at least. "She's as smart a witch as we've ever had come through our school. She's at the top of every one of her classes. I don't believe she's ever failed to get the high mark in an exam."

Remus studied the photo more closely. The girl did look deeply intelligent. "She looks clever," he said, buying time, wondering why Dumbledore was telling him about Hermione. _Because she's Harry's friend, of course!_ "They're Harry's best friends, then?"

"Inseparable, the three of them. They fancy themselves invincible, as well. They didn't get a term into their first year before they went off and fought a mountain troll together."

"Snuck out of the castle?" _Like father, like son._

Dumbledore's eyes lost some of their merriment. "No. The troll was inside the castle."

"Inside?"

"We've had a few problems at Hogwarts in recent years. Harry and his friends don't get into troubling situations so much because they want to as because they have to."

Even in his weakened state, Remus sucked in a breath and sat up sharply. "Lord Voldemort hasn't risen again?"

"No, no. But two years ago, we hired a man to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts who was working for Lord Voldemort. He very nearly stole the Philosopher's Stone."

"That's-- well, terrible seems like an understatement."

"The Stone was protected by young Mr. Potter."

"And I trust you found a new professor."

"Yes and no. Last year, we hired Gilderoy Lockhart for the position."

"The author of those, er, books?" Remus decided against attaching appropriate adjectives to the word "books." Dumbledore must have had his reasons for hiring the man, after all.

"That's the one. Grossly incompetent. I don't think our students learned a thing last year."

"With all due respect, why did you hire him?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "We had very little choice, so we thought it worth the risk."

"Very little choice? Who wouldn't jump at the chance to work at Hogwarts?"

Dumbledore's eyes flashed briefly with triumph before reverting to their normal, guarded state. "The wizarding world is a very superstitious community."

_Don't I know that. I've lived that. No one wants anything to do with a werewolf, after all._

"You are, as you know, a rarity in that you will even _say_ 'Lord Voldemort,'" Dumbledore continued. "And just as our community has convinced itself that saying a man's name will bring a hail of destruction down on our heads, it has convinced itself that the Defense Against the Dark Arts job at Hogwarts is cursed. No one will have the job."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Then what are you doing next year?"

"I intend to convince you to help me."

"I haven't been truly connected to the wizarding world for years. I don't know of anyone who could help you."

Dumbledore stared fixedly at Remus. "Then I suppose you shall have to come and teach yourself."

Remus was stunned. "I'm no more qualified than Lockhart!"

"I've heard many reports to the contrary. I keep track of my former students as best as I can, Remus, and you have hired yourself out to capture just about every Dark creature our textbooks cover."

"You set a beast to catch a beast. You don't set a beast to teach innocent children about beasts."

"Weren't you just saying that anyone would jump at the chance to work at Hogwarts?"

"It would be rather dangerous in my case, Headmaster," said Remus, laughing at the absurdity of Dumbledore's suggestion. The ridiculousness of the idea took some of the meanness out of it. Remus was desperate for work, security, intellectual stimulation, and companionship. Long years of struggling alone had taken their toll, and now Dumbledore was offering to allow him to return to the only place where he had ever been truly happy. He was offering purpose, food, shelter, and friendship. He was offering a chance to interact with James and Lily's son. And yet Remus had to refuse. "I couldn't take the risk of biting a student."

"We would make arrangements. No one was ever harmed when you were a student yourself, and that was before the advent of Wolfsbane Potion."

"There are only a handful of wizards in the world who can make Wolfsbane Potion."

"Professor Snape among them." Remus paled. Severus Snape would not, under any circumstances, be willing to go out of his way for a werewolf who had once nearly bitten him. Dumbledore appeared to read his thoughts. "Professor Snape would be willing to make the potion. The other professors have agreed that you returning to Hogwarts would be the best option in this situation. I take it that you did not see the late edition of yesterday's _Daily Prophet_?"

"No." A copy of the paper appeared in Dumbledore's hand. Remus leaned over to see the headline, and received his second major shock of the day. "SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES AZKABAN!" the paper fairly screamed. Remus' hands shook, and he was forced to set his teacup down quickly. "This can't be."

"Almost anything can be."

"No one has ever escaped from Azkaban."

"Sirius Black never was one to let the status quo rule his behavior."

"No," said Remus softly, briefly remembering his childhood friend and not the infamous killer.

"Soon before he broke out of Azkaban, he began talking in his sleep. He said the same words over and over: 'He's at Hogwarts.'"

Remus stared down at the photograph that still sat on the table. Harry smiled and waved up at him. "Harry," Remus whispered.

"We believe so, yes. Remus, I understand that you want to forget about your past experiences, but you are the best chance we have of figuring out how Sirius Black thinks. You have the knowledge that our students desperately need. And I know that you'd like to renew your acquaintance with Harry. You haven't contacted him since he's come to Hogwarts."

"I sent him some photographs of his parents through Hagrid."

"He's much more intriguing in person, I assure you. Do you accept the job?" Suddenly, Remus did not trust himself to speak. Instead, he nodded tightly. "Very good. We will be in touch. I suggest that you get some rest now."

Dumbledore vanished. Harry, Ron, and Hermione still waved at Remus from the photograph. In spite of the shock of the news about Sirius, Remus felt himself begin to smile. He was going to Hogwarts, where he would never have to worry about food, shelter, or even the dangers of transforming. He would have a job that truly mattered, a job that involved the lessons he had always loved. And he would meet Harry. Harry! The sweet little boy he hadn't seen in over a decade, the boy he had once sworn to defend with his life. A wave of happiness overtook him.

X

"Expecto patronum," he muttered. A familiar burst of white (shaped like a Gryffindor lion in honor of the place where Remus had first found friendship) issued from his wand.

The dementor retreated, and the door shut behind it. Almost immediately, the lights flickered on and the train began to rock comfortingly. Remus turned his attention to Harry, who still lay on the floor. Ron-- in the light, Remus could tell that this was without doubt Ron Weasley-- and Hermione were kneeling protectively on either side of their friend. _Inseparable, and fancy themselves invincible,_ Remus recalled. The other boy-- Neville-probably-Frank-Longbottom's-son-- stood and watched anxiously. Neville was trembling, too, and Remus did not need to wonder why. Neville had horrors in his past that rivaled Harry's. The sixth occupant of the car, a tiny red-haired girl who was almost certainly Ron's sister, was also shaking madly.

_Merlin's beard. Five children. One sees his parents murdered, one sees his parents driven mad, and one sees herself possessed by the spirit of Tom Riddle._

Remus had a job to do. He hunted through his case for the chocolate he had purchased in case of such an emergency. Dumbledore had suggested that he ride the Express rather than Apparate to Hogsmeade so soon after a transformation in large part because he did not trust the dementors to stay within the boundaries set for them.

But better the dementors than Sirius.

Harry was asking his friends who had screamed.

_I could tell you who you heard screaming, Harry, but I won't. It's best if you hold on to whatever innocence and happiness you can._ Remus cracked the slab of chocolate into pieces. "Here," he said to Harry. "Eat. It'll help."

Harry, Remus knew, had been raised as a Muggle and had apparently been subjected to the Muggle refrain of "don't take candy from strangers." He held the chocolate in his hand and eyed it suspiciously. "What was that thing?" Harry demanded.

_What did you expect, Remus? "Hi, Moony?" He has no idea who you are any longer._

"A dementor. One of the dementors of Azkaban." Remus gave chocolate to Neville-probably-Frank-Longbottom's-son and red-haired-probably-Ginny-Weasley as well as to Ron and Hermione, who had been less strongly affected. "Eat. It'll help. I need to speak to the driver. Excuse me…"

He left the compartment, dropping his outwardly polite manner as he did so. Angrily, he stormed along the corridor, careful to avoid colliding with the still-frightened children who were scampering about, checking on siblings and friends. He arrived at the front of the train and rounded on the driver, careful as always to keep his manner falsely polite but furious nonetheless.

"Excuse me?"

The driver looked up warily. "We're back on schedule, professor. We'll arrive in fifteen minutes."

"Of course. I have no doubt that you are a fine driver." The man nodded. "However, I was wondering why we stopped. Some of the students were rather aversely affected by the dementors. Dementors are dangerous creatures, and the students haven't been taught to defend themselves yet. Some of them have rather atrocious pasts, as well. It's only the very youngest who were born after the fall of Lord Voldemort."

The driver winced at Remus' use of the name. "I had no choice. It demanded that I stop." The driver shook, and Remus recalled that the man was possibly no more able to defend himself than the students. Many qualified wizards had difficulty with Patronus charms. "I don't like dementors any more than anyone else does."

"Are you all right, now?" Remus could not remember a story in which the Hogwarts Express had crashed, and he did not want today to mark the first such incident.

"Yes." The driver nodded gratefully. "The witch, there, gave me some chocolate from her cart."

"Right, then. Do you have some owls here, for emergencies? I'd like to contact Headmaster Dumbledore before we arrive."

"Behind the seat."

Remus looked down, and surely enough, several Hogwarts owls were sitting smartly in their cages. Remus snatched a scrap of parchment from a roll lying beside the owls and hastily wrote:

_Professor Dumbledore:_

_You were correct in your assumption that the dementors would not remain inside the boundaries set for them. A dementor caused the Express to stop and boarded the train. He did not leave until forced by a Patronus charm. Many of the students seem rather ill, and Harry Potter lost consciousness briefly. The driver expects us to arrive on schedule despite this interruption. I suggest that Hogwarts be on its guard against uninvited visitors when the students are traveling from the train to the castle._

_Sincerely,_

_Remus J. Lupin_

He thanked the driver and returned to the compartment he had been sharing with Harry and his friends. Harry had spoken just four words to him, but Remus already remembered how fiercely protective he had felt of James' son. The adoration Remus had once felt for Lily, James, and Peter had multiplied tenfold and refocused itself on young Harry when Remus had not been paying attention. The magnitude of his feelings was almost frightening.

_If you want him, Sirius, you'll have to go through me!_

Not that he expected Sirius to have a problem with that proposition.

He opened the door and looked around. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Ginny were all in the process of putting themselves to rights, but none of them had touched the chocolate. _They've never had a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who knew what he was doing_, Remus reminded himself. _It's rather wise of them not to trust me. But they will feel better if they eat it._

He smiled in a way he hoped was non-threatening. "I haven't poisoned that chocolate, you know . . ." Harry was the first to obey his implicit command. Remus tried not to be too obvious in his concern for James' son, and his amusement at the look of wonder that crossed the boy's face when the chocolate began its work. "We'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes," he told the assembled group. Then unable to resist, he asked "Are you all right, Harry?"

"Fine," muttered Harry, staring at the floor and clearly embarrassed.

_I just called him by name, didn't I? He doesn't seem suspicious . . . but, of course, everyone knows who he is. He's the savior of the wizarding world. He's used to everyone knowing his name. And he doesn't care about anything but that he's just fainted in front of his friends. _Remus felt his heart constrict again._ Oh, Harry, there's no shame in it. You're not the first to collapse before a dementor, and you surely won't be the last. That despicable creature! Drawing up your parents' deaths for you . . . and Sirius. First killing them and then escaping like this, foisting these dementors on the undeserving. How much is Harry supposed to take?_

Remus remained lost in his thoughts as the train stopped and the multitude embarked on the carriages that quickly drove them to the castle. He settled into the carriage behind the one claimed by Harry and his friends. When the carriage jerked to a stop, he instantly looked for Harry, wanting to drink in the sight of him without being observed. It would look rather odd for a professor to stare at a student, even a famous one, this way.

"You _fainted_, Potter? Is Longbottom telling the truth? You actually _fainted_?" Remus bit down a wave of fury as a boy wearing a Slytherin scarf clambered over to Harry.

Harry's friend Ron instantly leapt to his defense. _Just like Sir-- no, certainly not!_ "Shove off, Malfoy." _Malfoy. That makes sense... _

"Did you faint as well, Weasley? Did the scary old dementor frighten you, too, Weasley?"

Before Ron could defend Harry with his fists-- and Remus was quite certain that he was willing-- Remus interrupted the meeting. "Is there a problem?" he asked. Young Malfoy gave Remus' a derogatory once-over, but he ceased tormenting Harry and Ron.

"Oh, no-- er-- _Professor_." And Malfoy left. _I never could have kept Sirius and Severus off of each other that way. It's good to be a professor. _Remus smirked to himself, and without waiting around to further embarrass Harry, slipped off in search of the other teachers.

Naturally, Dumbledore found Remus before Remus found him. "Remus! We received your owl. Thank you. We believe we've taken appropriate precautions, although the students will have to be a bit more careful about following the rules than they have been in the past." Suddenly, without the vision of Harry to anchor him, Remus felt that he was back in school himself. He and his friends had been rather notorious thanks to their-- mostly Sirius'-- distinct lack of ability to follow rules. _Sirius_. Unwanted memories of black hair and a mischievous smile swam unbidden to the forefront of Remus' mind. "The feast will start in a moment, but I can take you up to your office first," Dumbledore continued.

"Thank you, Headmaster."

"You're a professor yourself. You don't need to be so formal. Of course, it's your choice."

Remus nodded. He had managed to begin calling Professor McGonagall "Minerva" during the short years between graduation and James' death, but it had been so long since he had seen this place that his older, stronger memories were the ones reasserting themselves. Referring to Dumbledore as "Albus," though, had never seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

The office was in the same place it had been during Remus' student years. "Your private rooms are behind the bookshelves," Dumbledore explained. "Just push _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ in sideways." He demonstrated, and the wall swung open. Remus gratefully set his case down on the bed, and then followed Dumbledore from the office. He was still quite tired, but the thought of the feast reminded him that he was also ravenous.

With some trepidation, he walked to the high table where the professors sat. Each step was more frightening than the last. Almost every member of the Hogwarts faculty had taught Remus for at least part of his own education.

_How can I ever compete with them?_

_You aren't meant to compete with them. You're meant to manage to get through the year without endangering your students and perhaps teach them a thing or two._

_My robes . . . my robes! _

Remus had never paid much mind to his appearance while living in the slum. Now, though, as he saw the other professors dressed in their finest robes, he realized how truly shabby he looked. One did not need to be as conceited as a Malfoy to notice that Remus was nearly wearing rags.

_It's not the way you look. It's the way you act._

That in mind, Remus reached the table.

"Remus!" squeaked Professor Flitwick, the tiny Charms professor, with no small degree of excitement. Now, Remus could not help but smile. Charms had been one of his favorite subjects as a student (though he had never really been able to compete with Harry's mother for the top mark), and Professor Flitwick was impossible to dislike.

"Hello, Professor Flitwick. How are you?"

"Excellent, wonderful! I was delighted when Albus offered you the job. Sit right there." He gestured to a seat near his own. "I want to talk to you. But the Sorting's about to begin." And Professor Flitwick hurried off to set the Hat on its stool in a place of honor.

Remus was allowed a brief reprieve from awkward socializing while the Hat sang and the terrified-looking first-years were Sorted. Soon, though, he became aware of eyes boring painfully into him. He turned toward them.

It was, of course, Severus Snape. _I wonder what Dumbledore had to do to get him to agree to make Wolfsbane potion for me? He obviously hasn't gotten past Sirius' prank. Not that I blame him, but knowing what we do of Sirius now…_ Remus smiled at Snape-- _no, Severus._ It would not do to let boyhood rivalries shine through his behavior as a teacher. Severus did not return the smile, and it was with relief that Remus turned his attention to Dumbledore as he began to speak.

"Welcome! Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! I have a few things to say to you all, and as one of them is very serious, I think it best to get it out of the way before you become befuddled by our excellent feast. As you will all be aware after their search of the Hogwarts Express, our school is presently playing host to some of the dementors of Azkaban, who are here on Ministry of Magic business. They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds, and while they are with us, I must make it plain that nobody is to leave the school without permission. Dementors are not to be fooled by tricks or disguises-- or even Invisibility Cloaks." A wave of nostalgia swept over Remus. Harry obviously had James' cloak, and was using it much the same way that James had. "It is not in the nature of a dementor to understand pleading or excuses. I therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the dementors. On a happier note, I am pleased to welcome two new teachers to our ranks this year. First, Professor Lupin, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

Remus smiled, uncomfortable aware that every eye was focused on him. He had never been especially fond of being the center of attention; a werewolf who wished to remain closeted learned early in life to keep his head down and his mouth shut. The students were clapping half-heartedly, for the most part, as they wondered whether Remus was as much a threat as their previous Defense Against the Dark Arts professors had been; and how easy Remus' classes would be; and why in the world he was dressed in patched, frayed robes.

Harry, Remus noted, was applauding much more enthusiastically than were the other students. _Polite? Impressed by the Patronus? Knows it would kill me if he didn't like me?_

"As to our second appointment," Dumbledore continued, "Well, I'm sorry to tell you that Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs. However, I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gameskeeping duties."

The students roared their approval, and Remus cheered as well. Hagrid had spent a good deal of his time, many years ago, waging a never-ending battle to keep James and Sirius away from the Forbidden Forrest. Remus had to respect any man who could take on such a hopeless fight.

Dumbledore concluded his speech. "I think that's everything of importance. Let the feast begin!" Food appeared miraculously, and Remus split his attention between Professor Flitwick and eating as much as he could without looking like a starving wolf.

The feast wound down, and Remus headed for his office, weary but happier than he could have expected to be.

Professor McGonagall caught up to him just before he reached the door. "Remus! I'm so happy you've come back."

"Minerva." Remus smiled tiredly. "I'm happy to be back."

"Honestly, you've stayed so far away from us ever since… well, ever since the Potters died."

"There was no reason for me to be here."

Compassion slid into the sides of her beady eyes. "I'm sorry you feel that way."

"Circumstances need to be extenuating for someone in my condition to be allowed into a school."

"Oh, Remus… this whole thing must bring back some unpleasant memories for you."

"As for everyone else."

"You're in a unique situation."

"I'm certain that was brought up along with my physical condition when the decision was made to hire me."

Minerva shook her head. "Everyone seems politely willing to forget about any friendships you may have had in your past." Her expression darkened. "Almost everyone."

"Severus is less than thrilled."

"Severus is always less than thrilled, not least because he wants the Defense Against the Dark Arts position for himself."

"Why won't Dumbledore give it to him?"

"Dumbledore has his reasons." Remus nodded. "In any case," Minerva continued, "No one will mention your relationship with Sirius Black, and it's best if you mention it to no one. And do recall that it isn't common knowledge that he was the Potters' Secret-Keeper." She sighed deeply. "He's another thing everyone has been politely willing to forget about. Everyone claims that Gryffindor has never produced a Dark wizard." She laughed bitterly. "Sirius never liked to be ignored."

"No." Suddenly, Remus no longer wanted sleep. He knew his dreams would be invaded by Sirius, laughing over Peter's body as over a childhood prank. Minerva seemed to perceive the change in Remus' mood, for she found a new subject.

"You met Harry on the train, then?"

A silly smile plastered itself to Remus' face, but he didn't care. "He's marvelous."

"He's many things."

"I hope I can be the teacher he deserves."

She smiled reassuringly. "You'll be fine. And do make certain that you come to me with any questions you have about the students, discipline, class schedules. Anything."

"Refraining from luring Harry into my office and keeping him there as I tell him ad nauseum that he looks just like his father?"

"He has a very good nature. I'm sure he'd humor you. He probably remembers you."

"He wasn't even two the last time I saw him."

"Subconsciously, Remus, subconsciously. He was touched by your affection at a very young age. He'll likely have an affinity for you right away."

Remus liked that idea. Perhaps he would be able to sleep after all. Minerva soon took her leave, and it was morning before Remus knew it.

The morning, though, did not pass smoothly. Those professors who had bothered to seek Remus out in the chaos of the opening feast had been the ones eager to see him. On the morning that classes began, however, he was forced to interact with those members of the faculty and staff who were unable to fathom why Albus Dumbledore chose to trust a werewolf, and a former friend of Sirius Black to boot. Foremost in this group was Severus Snape.

They happened to enter the Great Hall at the same time.

"Good morning, Severus," Remus said. He knew that his overture would be rebuffed, but he could not fail to make it.

"What was Albus thinking?" Severus muttered under his breath. Slightly louder, he said "I'll be watching you, Lupin. I'll see that you don't do to these students what you tried to do to me." The years that had passed since Sirius' _amusing_ prank had increased, not decreased, Severus' bitterness. "And I'll not let you help your partner in crime into the castle, as you helped him out of Azkaban."

"I assure you, I did nothing of the sort," replied Remus mildly, although his blood was boiling. He had long ago learned that the best way to handle people like Severus was to kill them with kindness. If nothing else, it would at least confuse Severus, and that could be slightly entertaining. More importantly, little as he liked it, Remus would soon be in Severus' debt. It would not do to fight with the man who would make the Wolfsbane potion Remus so needed. "I didn't even know Sirius had escaped until Professor Dumbledore came to see me about this job."

"A likely story," sneered Severus. "Stay away from me. And don't give any trouble to the members of my house, or there will be Hell to pay!"

Remus just barely stopped himself from asking to which house Severus belonged. Any fun he had with Severus would need to be more subtle. (For while he knew that the list of reasons for being friendly to Severus was long, Remus had not yet lost the sense of humor that had once bound him to James, Peter, and even Sirius.)

Severus stalked away, and Remus ate his breakfast and proceeded to his first classes in peace. To his delight, his first day was filled with little trouble. The students were Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws and therefore neither members of the house he was eager to teach nor members of the house he half-dreaded teaching. At the end of the day, he found himself in the faculty lounge studying the rosters for the classes he was to meet the next day. Professor Flitwick sat near him, a tiny but powerful guardian against those who would have objected to Remus' presence in this room.

Remus was interestedly matching the surnames of his new students to the surnames of his former classmates when Minerva entered the room.

"Minerva!" exclaimed Professor Flitwick cheerfully. "Did you get cheers from the third-years when you transformed for them again this year?"

She shook her head in an annoyed sort of way. "No."

"No?"

"It's the first time-- oh, Remus, you'll enjoy this story as well." Remus obediently tore his eyes away from his roster and gave Minerva his full attention. "The third-years I had today were my own. The Gryffindors."

"A fine class," said Professor Flitwick, though all present knew that he was in truth partial to his own Ravenclaws.

"Under ordinary circumstances," Minerva agreed, accepting the compliment. "But they had just returned from their first class in," she sneered in a manner reminiscent of Severus, "_Divination_. Sibyll Trelawny just adores starting off the new year by predicting the death of a student. And she thought she'd tell Harry Potter he has a deadly enemy. I'm certain that came as a shock to him. She went on to see the Grim in his tea leaves, and with all that Harry goes through his classmates were ready to believe her."

"Is he all right?" Remus asked before he could help himself.

Minerva turned the full force of her sharp gaze on Remus. "Don't tell me you've come to consider omens legitimate magic?"

"I didn't mean it that way. She _is_ a professor, and he's a student. It could be a cause for concern for him."

Minerva softened at this. "No, no. I think I convinced them all not to take her class too seriously. Harry is much too level-headed in most things to worry over it. He didn't grow up hearing wizard superstitions, either."

Remus took Minerva at her word and the conversation turned to other topics. Much to Remus' chagrin, though, it was nearly a week before he had the opportunity to teach Harry himself.

As it happened, on the day of the third-year Gryffindors' first lesson in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Remus was late in arriving at his own classroom. He had been checking to see that all was well with the boggart with which he planned to allow them to work. When he entered the room, he found eight students sitting at their desks with their textbooks and quills expectantly awaiting his orders.

"Good afternoon," he greeted them. "Would you please put all your books back in your bags. Today's will be a practical lesson. You will need only your wands." The class obeyed, and Remus felt them sizing him up, as each of his other classes had done during the previous week. "Right, then. If you'd follow me."

The group had not gotten very far down the corridor when Peeves appeared in front of them. To one who had been dead as long as Peeves, the time which had passed since Remus has been a student himself must have seemed very short indeed. Peeves had never been fond of Remus. One of the poltergeist's favorite pastimes was ratting out students who were out of bed during night hours, and while Remus and his friends had often broken curfew, they had seldom been caught thanks to James' invisibility cloak and the Marauder's Map.

Peeves began to sing. "Loony, loopy Lupin, loony, loopy Lupin, loony, loopy Lupin--"

Remus ignored the song and instead suggested that Peeves cease his present occupation of stuffing chewing gum in keyholes. Peeves ignored him, and Remus sighed. The life he had led since graduating hardly left him in fear of a poltergeist, but he _did_ need the whole of his class time to ensure that his students would defeat the boggart.

"This is a useful little spell," he informed the group trailing after him. "Please watch closely." He then focused his attention on Peeves' gum. "Waddiwasi!" As planned, the gum flew out of the keyhole and into Peeves' face; more specifically, it flew into Peeves' nostril. _Perfect_.

"Cool, sir!" one of Harry's roommates, a Muggle-born boy named Dean Thomas exclaimed spontaneously.

"Thank you, Dean. Shall we proceed?" He led them to the staffroom and ushered them inside.

The room was deserted but for Severus, who immediately stood up to leave. "I'd rather not witness this," he said sourly. "Possibly no one's warned you, Lupin, but this class contains Neville Longbottom. I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult. Not unless Miss Granger is hissing instructions in his ear."

As it happened, Remus had heard several tales of Neville's academic difficulties from the other professors, but each story had been tempered by the speaker's knowledge of the fate of Frank Longbottom. Severus, though, showed Neville no mercy. "I was hoping Neville would assist me with the first stage of the operation, and I am certain he will perform it admirably." He hoped that his words would reassure Neville, but they only shooed Severus from the room, which was a welcome substitute effect.

"Now, then," Remus resumed. Before he could give the class their instructions, the wardrobe wobbled and several students jumped. "Nothing to worry about," he assured. "There's a boggart in there." It was simple work to tell which of the students had grown up in wizarding families and which had not. Neville, in particular, looked petrified, but Remus continued speaking so as not to worsen any of the students' anxieties. "Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces. Wardrobes, the gap beneath beds, the cupboards under sinks-- I've even met one that had lodged itself in a grandfather clock. _This_ one moved in yesterday afternoon, and I asked the headmaster if the staff would leave it to give my third-years some practice. So, the first question we must ask ourselves is, what _is_ a boggart?"

Hermione raised her hand, as Remus had been told she would. He nodded, and she, as predicted, gave a textbook-perfect answer: "It's a shape-shifter. It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most."

"Couldn't have put it better myself. So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears. This means that we have a huge advantage over the boggart before we begin. Have you spotted it, Harry?" _I want to hear his voice again._

"Er-- because there are so many of us, it won't know what shape it should be?" Though the answer was correct, Harry sounded entirely unsure of himself, and Remus carefully forced himself not to go overboard praising the boy. _It wouldn't do to make it seem like you have any more of an interest in him than in any of the other students. It's a small leap from telling him you knew his father to telling him Sirius Black is his godfather._ Remus managed to quiz the class on the pronunciation of the Riddikulus Charm without focusing overly much on Harry, and then returned his attention to Neville. Frank's son certainly needed his courage built up after Severus' abominable behavior. It would be best to help him decide exactly what to do with the boggart, if possible.

Neville, though, did not seem eager to tell his classmates what he most feared. "Professor Snape," he at last managed to whisper. The other students laughed.

_Opportunity knocks…_ "Professor Snape…hmmm… Neville, I believe you live with your grandmother?"

"Er-- yes," said Neville, still nervous. "But-- I don't want the boggart to turn into her, either."

"No, no, you misunderstand me." Remus was unable to wipe the smile from his face. "I wonder, could you tell us what sort of clothes your grandmother usually wears?" _This_ _is inspired. This is going to be good!_

"Well… always the same hat. A tall one with a vulture on top. And a long dress… green, normally… and sometimes a fox-fur scarf."

"And a handbag?" _Mustn't miss a trick._

"A big red one."

"Right, then. Can you picture those clothes very clearly, Neville? Can you see them in your mind's eye?"

"Yes," said Neville.

"When the boggart bursts out of this wardrobe, Neville, and sees you, it will assume the form of Professor Snape. And you will raise your wand-- thus-- and cry 'Riddikulus'-- and concentrate hard on your grandmother's clothes. If all goes well, Professor Boggart Snape will be forced into that vulture-topped hat, and that green dress, with that big red handbag."

The students clearly approved of this plan.

_It's almost as if no time has passed… imagine what James would think!_ James had been a great prankster; he could have put all of these students to shame. _And Peter. Sweet Peter._ Peter had been a victim one too many times to be a great fan of practical jokes, but even he would have admitted that Severus could do with a bit of comeuppance after tormenting poor Neville this way.

"If Neville is successful, the boggart is likely to shift his attention to each of us in turn," Remus warned the other students. "I would like all of you to take a moment now to think of the thing that scares you most, and imagine how you might force it to look comical."

After a moment, the students looked ready, with one notable exception. Harry.

_I'm not going to let you battle Lord Voldemort, anyway, Harry. You've done that too many times already. And I have no desire for you to relive your parents' deaths yet again. I have no desire to relive that myself… you have no idea. _

_And I'll not give you an idea._

He backed the group away from the wardrobe and counted three.

Surely enough, the boggart emerged as a remarkable likeness of Severus Snape. Neville rose to the occasion. "Riddikulus!" The room shook with laughter.

_You asked for it, Severus_, Remus thought briefly before ordering Parvati Patil-- whose identical twin he had already taught-- forward. A mummy. Parvati did well. "Seamus!" A banshee. Ordinary, straightforward fears. It was reassuring, in a way. The boggart was not a powerful specimen, and it grew confused almost instantly. It became a rat, a rattlesnake, an eyeball without prompting. "Dean!" A severed hand. "Ron!" A spider. _Good_. Ron was the last of the wizarding children in the room, and a Muggle child like Hermione or Lavender was unlikely to see a werewolf… not that Remus was unused to such things, but he preferred not to have his students terrified of him all the same.

But the boggart did not turn to Hermione or Lavender. Instead, it turned to Harry, and Remus was forced to step forward and provoke the familiar shape of the moon. The boggart was vanquished soon afterwards, and Remus sent the class away with instructions to write an essay on boggarts.

Before he had even put the staff room to rights, the feedback on his lesson began.

"Well, Remus," said Minerva as she entered the room. "I see you made the most out of your first opportunity to teach Harry."

Remus turned around disbelievingly. "The class ended five minutes ago."

She briefly looked as if she might laugh, but she kept her beady gaze fixed. "News travels fast."

"I see."

Any other observations she might have made were lost when the door banged open angrily. "LUPIN!" snarled Severus before he had made it all the way inside the room.

"Hello, Severus," he replied mildly as he pretended to continue straightening the room. He was not in the least afraid of looking Severus in the face (abnormally large nose or not), but neither was he eager to cause a disruption in the faculty lounge. He felt enough like a student without sparring with a boyhood rival.

"LOOK AT ME WHEN YOU TALK TO ME, LUPIN!"

_So much for that_. Remus turned around slowly. "There's no need to shout, Severus." _And I'm not one of your students,_ he refrained from adding.

"THERE'S NO NEED TO SHOUT? _WHAT_ DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING?"

"Doing? I was teaching my class. I thought you realized that. I did invite you to stay."

"YOU WERE NOT _TEACHING_! YOU WERE _USING_ YOUR POSITION TO FURTHER YOUR INFANTILE GAMES!" Remus was so fascinated by Severus' outrage, complete with spitting and stomping of feet, that he nearly forgot to be offended by the man's words.

"I certainly did not intend to," he replied, keeping his tones measured as always.

"It was hardly an accident," Severus hissed, at last lowering his voice. "Slandering a fellow professor-- I would have thought that there were some things that even _you_ were above--" he broke off, still glowering at Remus.

"I can hardly control what my students see in their boggarts. You're attributing powers to me that I simply don't possess."

Severus tossed his head. "I imagine that your friend Black taught you a few tricks."

In spite of himself, Remus stiffened at the use of Sirius' name. Severus, feeling the glare being directed at him by Minerva, seemed to perceive that he had gone a bit too far. Calling Sirius by name had nearly become akin to calling Lord Voldemort by name. Before he could be reprimanded, he stormed from the room. Remus, after being asked to describe his class for a few new arrivals, left as well. Never an overly outgoing man, he suddenly felt very much like being left alone. His burst of antisocial behavior was triggered not by Severus, whose bluster was not difficult to ignore, but by the mention of Sirius Black's name.

_I ought to get used to it_, he reminded himself. Since the morning that Dumbledore had shown him the Daily Prophet with its enormous headline pertaining to Sirius' escape, the images of Halloween, 1981, had never seemed to lurk far below the surface of any conversation. Even the Hogwarts students who had no way of remembering the war were constantly mentioning the presence of dementors, and dementors meant Sirius.

Almost everything meant Sirius. For twelve years, he had thought he had properly relegated his memories of Sirius to a category labeled "started well, ended badly, retrieve with caution." Now, though, his sometime friend had returned to haunt him with a vengeance.

Even infuriating Severus Snape brought back memories of Sirius. _Why shouldn't it?_ he reflected with a trace of bitterness. _Why does Severus hate me? Because of Sirius! Though that hardly makes the list of "worst things Sirius Black ever did" any longer._

Or did the connection between Sirius and Severus begin even before that miserable full moon?

Severus Snape had always hated James Potter. Remus had never asked James why; and now he would never have the chance. The general suspicion, though, was that he was simply jealous. It hadn't helped that James had eventually won the affection of Lily, Severus' childhood friend. Furthermore, James had been a favorite among many of the professors. He had been so smart and so charming that his trouble-making nature had never bothered the professors for longer than it took James to serve out his detention.

In fact, James' pranks seemed to make him even more memorable and endearing to nearly everyone whose path he crossed. Severus, by contrast, was watched with an air of dislike by adult witches and wizards who suspected that their student had a better working knowledge of Dark Magic than they themselves did. In addition, Severus was not pleased to learn that James had been granted an obscene amount of natural Quidditch talent and had made a spectacular Gryffindor team as a second-year. Such a feat was nearly unheard-of.

_Today, because James was at Quidditch practice-- Sirius was almost certain to make the team as a third-year, but had missed out thus far-- and Peter was in the hospital wing after a miserable potions accident, Remus and Sirius were sitting alone together in the Gryffindor Common Room. They were the only second-years to be seen; the whereabouts of the girls and the other boys were anyone's guess. _

_Remus was peacefully looking over his Herbology essay and waiting for Sirius to explode. _

_Explode Sirius did. "We have to do something!" he snapped. A handful of older students sent disdainful looks in their direction, and Sirius lowered his voice. "How can you sit there so calmly?"_

"_It's hard to read when you're jumping all over the place," Remus replied._

"_When I am or when you are?"_

"_Either."_

"_Maybe you should stop reading."_

"_I already have."_

"_Good." Sirius leaned in closer to Remus. "Have you started planning?"_

_Remus raised an eyebrow. "You're much better at planning than I am," he said truthfully._

_Sirius raised an eyebrow in return. "Has anyone ever told you that false modesty is a sin?"_

"_I'm not being modest. It's true."_

"_No," Sirius temporarily pretended to agree. "You're not modest at all. Remember how you told us that you were terrible at potions? I've never seen a bad mark out of you yet."_

"_I study."_

"_Really? I hadn't noticed. Maybe if I lived with you or something I'd know more about what you do--" he broke off with a gesture meant to suggest that he had just remembered something. "Wait-- I do live with you. And I know that you study far too much. You don't need to. You must be near the top in every one of our subjects."_

"_You're ahead of me in most of them," Remus pointed out._

"_The fact that you actually know that frightens me. Are you trying to make prefect?"_

_Remus shook his head emphatically. "No."_

"_Then why study?"_

"_Well, you know-- I owe it to Dumbledore to do well. Since he admitted me and all." Remus felt his stomach lurch as a calculating, thoughtful look passed briefly across Sirius' features._

"_Why wouldn't he admit you? You come from a good family, don't you? Has there ever been any sign that you aren't going to be powerfully magical?"_

"_No," Remus corrected a bit too quickly. "But Hogwarts is one of the best schools of magic in the world. It's an honor to be let in. No one can be certain of getting a place."_

"_I don't know why that's to do with Dumbledore."_

"_It isn't. I was just talking." Remus decided to change the subject. "Do you have an idea?"_

"_For the Slytherins?"_

"_No, for James. Of course for the Slytherins." Remus found himself inexplicably mildly annoyed; but then, Sirius had been asking the questions that he had the least possible business asking._

_Sirius, though, laughed. Sirius laughed loudly and often. He spent the better part of his life laughing. "I always keep a store of ideas for James. And for the Slytherins."_

"_Well?"_

"_I don't want to use just any idea on them this time. They need something special after today." His usually open face darkened, and Remus understood why. The same potions "accident" which had landed Peter in Madam Pomfrey's care had also sent most of the class scurrying for safety in a nearby dungeon. The potions master had ordered them to stay there, and while a cancelled class was usually cause for celebration, on this occasion the time had been spent shivering in a cold, dank room that was not usually kept open or maintained. The moon was a mere two days past its fullness, and Remus had found particular difficulty in keeping himself warm and alert._

_His transformations had been especially dreadful as of late. The doctor who had treated him when he received the Bite had long ago informed his parents that when puberty arrived, the Curse would be especially violent. His human body's efforts to grow would be thwarted by his periodic physical ordeals, and the transformations themselves became more complex as rapidly growing bones and muscles already stretched to their limits were reshaped unforgivingly into a wolf's bones and muscles. In addition, Remus found himself worrying incessantly about his friends' suspicions as to where he went each month and as to why his health was so poor. And when Remus was in a less-than-optimal emotional state, the wolf was so as well._

_After a moment's intense concentration, Sirius suggested that they, along with James, sneak into the Slytherin second-years' dormitory and light fire to a potion which would send them all to the hospital wing along with Peter. _

_Remus was less than enthusiastic._

"_The trouble with you, Remus," Sirius declared, "is that you have no sense of the poetic."_

"_The trouble with you, Sirius," Remus returned, "is that you have no sense at all."_

"_Thank you," said Sirius. "Your turn. All this thinking is hurting my head."_

"_Why do it now? Why not wait for an opportunity?"_

"_You're missing the point. They need to be taught a lesson. We don't want them to try this again next week. They have to know who did it to them and why."_

"_We could transfigure their room so it looks like the one we were stuck in. And feels like it and smells like it. Then we could charm all of their books so they only open to the lesson we're going to have to make up next weekend. We rewrite their non-potions texts to be potions texts, of course," Remus suggested, hoping that Sirius understood the concept of facetiousness._

"_Maybe in a few more years. At least you're trying properly now." Sirius stared hard at his friend for a long beat. "What if we found a way to kick them out of their room the way we were kicked out of the potions room? In the middle of the night? Perhaps we could even get them outside-- did you look at the ceiling in the Great Hall? Was it raining?"_

"_Yes," said Remus. He was notorious for staring at the Great Hall's enchanted ceiling. He claimed that he simply admired the charmwork and never tired of gazing at it; in truth, though, he could not tear his eyes from the moon, or the lack of the moon._

_Sirius snapped his fingers. "Brilliant! We'll get the Invisibility Cloak and sneak in there tonight and set off a protective charm, and block the exits so their head of house has to take them outside!" He slumped back into his seat, plan completed._

"_If we COULD block the exits, which I don't think we can, we'd have to do it ahead of time," said Remus, amused as he always was to find himself taking one of his friend's schemes seriously. "Or at the very least figure out how."_

"_Naturally. It's all in the timing."_

"_Timing," Remus repeated. Slowly, he smiled. "What if we put the spell on a delay?"_

"_Which spell?"_

"_The one that sets off the protective charm. The one that makes the climate change suddenly?"_

_Sirius' eyes widened with respect and delight. While many of the professors lamented that Sirius seemed to do a great deal of nothing-- he simply had the sort of brain that made studying unnecessary-- Sirius could work like a madman when he was motivated. In less than fifteen minutes, he had uncovered an appropriate charm in the back of a spell encyclopedia which a student had donated to the Common Room for general reference. _

_After a quick dash up the stairs to drag James' Cloak out of his trunk, a newly invisible Sirius and Remus crept along quiet corridors. James had found the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room quite by accident at the end of their first year, and this knowledge was put to good use. When a dull-looking sixth-year muttered the password ("aspire"), the cloaked figure slipped inside behind him. _

_They wandered around the dungeon room, so unlike their own Gryffindor Tower, and to their disgust could see no passages that might lead to sleeping rooms. However, they did see Snape's friend Avery, who was looking more innocuous than usual with a book open in his lap and the crazed expression he always wore muted by relaxation. _

_Sirius smiled. _

_Remus grabbed Sirius' wrist tightly with one hand and relieved his friend of his wand with the other._

_Sirius scowled._

_As quietly as he could Remus mumbled a dueling charm he had picked up while watching older students practice. Avery's quill snapped in two, and Avery, after swearing and looking around for a spare quill to swipe, rose and headed for one austere wall._

_He walked through it._

_Sirius and Remus followed, and as soon as Avery had returned to the Common Room they laid their trap. Deciding not to push their luck, they retreated from the dormitory and then the Common Room._

_As they exited Slytherin territory, though, they suffered from a brief moment of carelessness. They walked directly into two sweating, muddy members of Slytherin's Quidditch team who were obviously returning from practice._

"_WHAT?" yelled one. Wildly, Remus noted that the Cloak had slipped from their shoulders in the scuffle. Hastily, he stuffed it beneath his robes. Damage control called for the Slytherins not learning about James' Cloak so early in their collective Hogwarts career._

"_Excuse us," said Remus, though he doubted that politeness would go far with this crowd._

"_Excuse you? WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN OUR COMMON ROOM?"_

"_Oh? Is your Common Room here?" asked Sirius innocently. "We had no idea." He glanced about theatrically. "Which wall opens up? Or is it the ceiling?"_

_The Slytherin stepped menacingly toward Sirius. Sirius was tall for his age, but his potential opponent was at least five years his senior. "EITHER YOU KNOW OR YOU'RE TRYING TO FIND OUT, YOU LITTLE-- GRYFFINDOR! WHY ELSE WOULD YOU BE HERE?"_

_Sirius gulped, but he did not need to find an answer. Someone answered for him._

_James had arrived. It seemed that Gryffindor, too, had just finished its Quidditch practice. "They came to meet me at the door, like they always do when I have practice!" he announced. "They've been walking with us this whole time. D'you think they could just appear out of nowhere?" The Slytherin team, which had now arrived in its entirety, looked dumfounded. "Good," said James. "You've been escorted back to your dungeon, as promised. And we'll be going now."_

_The three hastened back to Gryffindor Tower. Remus silently handed the Cloak to James. James accepted it and mock-glared at Sirius. "What have I told you about taking this without permission?"_

"_Do it often, and make good mischief?" inquired Sirius._

"_Right! Report?"_

_Sirius and Remus explained their afternoon's work to James, who nodded sagely. "You shouldn't be caught back there tonight, fixing doors," he said._

"_Neither should you," Sirius pointed out. _

_James nodded. "Oh, well. We can't have a perfect prank every time," he said nonchalantly. "Have you visited Peter yet? Perhaps he'll be released this evening."_

"_Are you ma--" Sirius began, and then grinned. "No. It's time we paid Peter a visit."_

_Peter returned from the hospital wing that evening, looking immensely pleased with himself._

_The next morning, at breakfast, the four friends were thrilled to see that the whole of Slytherin House looked tired and cold. Many of them were coughing, and Madam Pomfrey bustled around the table with flasks of Pepper-Up Potion. Remus was slightly taken aback to see how much damage their plot had wrought. _

_Sirius, though, just suppressed a laugh. "Look at Snape, look at Snape!" he repeated as Dumbledore stood up and warned the student body against such potentially harmful mischief._

"He'd have done anything to hurt Severus," Remus said to himself as he shook off the vestiges of his daydream. "He was a bit mad, even at twelve."

Remus supposed that he deserved to suffer, just a bit, for being an accessory to Sirius' madness.

And when the first full moon of the school year arrived far too quickly, Severus took full advantage of the opportunity to make Remus suffer. He stormed into Remus' office without knocking on the evening that Remus was to take his first dose of the potion. "LUPIN! Don't waste my time! Drink this!" he demanded.

"Thank you, Severus," said Remus with rising dread. He could smell the Wolfsbane, and the thought of actually consuming it was not a happy one. His lips curled involuntarily as he raised the smoking goblet to his mouth. He barely suppressed a gasp as the first swallow of potion burned its way down his throat.

Severus shifted impatiently on his feet. "Hurry up," he said petulantly.

"You don't need to watch me drink it."

"And chance having a wild beast loose around my students? I don't believe so," Severus snarled.

"You have my word that I will--"

"The word of a werewolf? Dumbledore ordered me to make certain that you took your potion the week before the full moon this year. And I will do it, though I must say that I began to lose faith in him the moment he began to talk about hiring you."

Remus ignored the insult. "I can't drink it any faster."

"Yes, you can. I tested it myself."

"Honestly? You tested it?" Remus smiled to himself. Each second spent asking Severus a question was a second not spent willing himself to drink the toxicity-radiating potion.

"Of course I tested it! If you dropped dead, McGonagall and the rest of your fan club would waste no time in telling Albus I killed you on purpose."

Remus finished the vile concoction and returned the goblet to its owner, who accepted it as if it were coated with some repulsive substance.

"I'll return tomorrow," Severus growled, and left the room with much swishing of robes.

He did return; nonetheless, when the hour of the transformation finally came, Remus found himself a nervous wreck. _I should have gone out to the Shrieking Shack,_ he thought. Dumbledore had insisted that Severus had his complete confidence, and that Remus should simply lock himself in his office and "get some sleep, as I understand that many animals sleep much more soundly than their human counterparts." Remus suspected that something or someone was standing guard near the entrance of his office in case the potion did not work, but his anxiety rose with each passing moment.

Finally, he stripped himself naked and placed his clothes atop a bookshelf: out of the wolf's reach but easy for him to recover in the morning. The familiar pains of the transformation began.

He had outgrown screaming in his late teens. The screams had always been more of terror and anticipation than of pain, as the worst part of the transformation frequently left him breathless. He had screamed when the transformation began, with the stiffening and lengthening of his spine, and the sprouting of fur and claws. This first stage was not, by his standards, terribly painful.

The later stages, however . . . he tried not to think about the later stages.

Remus got to his feet, and found that he had four. He was a wolf, with deadly claws and a long muzzle and a tail-- and a completely human mind.

He wished that he had left a mirror uncovered in this room so that he could see himself with his human-wolf eyes. Never before had his thoughts been clear enough at this time of the month for him to be capable of having such a wish. The only times he had had even the slightest recollections of his human identity had been the times when he had run with Prongs and Wormtail and Padfoot.

_Padfoot._

So far as Remus knew, the story of the Animagus abilities of James and Peter had died with them. And as for Sirius, surely the Dark Magic he had learned from Lord Voldemort had rendered his schoolboy tricks obsolete.

_I should tell Dumbledore about Sirius. I don't believe the Ministry knows. The Daily Prophet has not warned its readers to look for a black dog. Surely if they knew, I would have been questioned. Every member of the staff at this school knows that Sirius and I were friends._

_Or do they?_ Perhaps the majority of the faculty members did not mention, even in a secretive whisper, Remus' ties to Sirius out of politeness. And perhaps they had forgotten. James and Peter were remembered as the hero and the martyr, while Sirius was their killer. Remus fit nowhere into the equation. Remus was what had been left over with the Dark Lord vanquished.

_Dumbledore may not know about Padfoot. Dumbledore should know about Padfoot. _

Remus wondered how this thought had not come to the forefront of his mind sooner.

_Now that I don't have to worry about transformations, or my teaching ability, or being a complete outcast from society, Sirius would be more important._

Remus had ignored Sirius for many years, and Sirius was having his revenge, firstly by taking over Remus' thoughts and secondly by transforming his bitterness into guilt. _It's almost nice to be important enough to feel guilty. Almost._

_I'll tell Dumbledore when I'm human again._

But on Halloween, as the next full moon approached, Remus had not spoken to the headmaster. He told himself that he was busy with his classes and with his new life, which was changing almost as rapidly as he could handle. Changing location every few months during the years since the fall of Voldemort had been exhausting, but it had been a habit. Now, he had new habits of eating when he was hungry, finding company when he was lonely, and expecting help when he felt ill. He had a wonderful collection of students to teach, and among them was Harry. He had managed to stop staring at and obsessing over James' son, but long years of wondering about the boy still made him appreciate each opportunity for interaction.

_Think of the devil…_

Harry was wandering aimlessly past Remus' door without his usual escorts. "Harry?" Remus called. Harry circled back and faced Remus. "What are you doing? Where are Ron and Hermione?"

"Hogsmeade," said Harry.

_Of course. He can't be allowed to go because of Sirius. If I could get my hands around Sirius' neck… or Padfoot's… I should talk to Dumbledore._ Despite his confused thoughts, Remus heard himself ask Harry to come inside. "I've just taken delivery of a grindylow for our next lesson," he explained. _And Defense Against the Dark Arts is exactly why I want to talk to you._

"A what?" asked Harry. He actually seemed interested in the lesson, and this pleased Remus greatly.

"Water demon." Remus slipped easily into professorial mode. "We shouldn't have much difficulty with him, not after the kappas. The trick is to break his grip. You notice the abnormally long fingers? Strong, but very brittle." The obvious topic avoided, Remus offered his student a cup of tea. "I've only got teabags, I'm afraid-- but I daresay you've had enough of tea leaves?" he could not resist asking. _Minerva did say he took it well._

Harry's head shot up. "How did you know about that?"

"Professor McGonagall told me. You're not worried, are you?"

"No," said Harry. He then proceeded to lose the air of anxiety that had surrounded him since being invited into a strange professor's office as he slipped into his own thoughts. His young face was a mask of concern.

_Not worried about tea leaves, but worried about something. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. He's like James. And Sirius… Sirius who I might be able to deliver him from._ "Anything worrying you, Harry?"

Harry carefully made eye contact with the grindylow rather than with his professor. "Yes," he admitted. "You know that day we fought the boggart?"

_Over a month ago!_ "Yes." _As long as he's worried about the boggart rather than Sirius, there's no need to go Dumbledore about Padfoot…_

"Why didn't you let me fight it?"

Remus raised his eyebrows in surprise. He knew that Harry liked to project himself as tough, but he had not seen this coming. "I would have thought that was obvious, Harry."

"Why?" Harry repeated.

"Well, I assumed that if the boggart faced you, it would assume the shape of Lord Voldemort." Harry stared at Remus as if the thought had never occurred to him. "Clearly, I was wrong. But I didn't think it a good idea for Lord Voldemort to materialize in the staffroom. I imagined people would panic."

"I didn't think of Voldemort" _he doesn't say 'You-Know-Who!'_ "I-- I remembered those dementors."

"I see. Well, well… I'm impressed." Harry gave Remus a look of utter shock. _Doesn't have a very lofty opinion of himself for an internationally renowned celebrity, does he? _"That suggests that what you fear most of all is-- fear. Very wise, Harry." Again, Harry fell silent. Remus decided to ask the obvious question. "So you've been thinking that I didn't believe you capable of fighting the boggart?"

Harry answered in the affirmative and had brightened dramatically when Severus interrupted, managing for once to knock. Harry's eyes locked on the smoking goblet of Wolfsbane Potion; he was obviously concerned. At last, he blurted out "Professor Snape's very interested in the Dark Arts."

_Still famous, are you, Severus?_ "Really?"

"Some people reckon-- some people reckon he'd do anything to get the Defense Against the Dark Arts job."

Touching as it was to see Harry attempting to protect him, Remus decided that Harry had best leave before he asked a question that Remus did not want to answer.

The Halloween Feast was a celebration, and for that reason Remus did not feel the need to mention Sirius' special abilities to Dumbledore_. He deserves to celebrate_, Remus told himself. _Harry is safe at Hogwarts, and Sirius won't be able to get inside. Lord Voldemort himself couldn't break Hogwarts' barriers at the height of his power._

These thoughts kept Remus feeling safe and happy until, as the students filed from the Great Hall, a sharp summons came from Professor Dumbledore. There was a commotion before the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room, and before Dumbledore was able to convince Peeves to tell him what had happened, Remus knew. "Nasty temper he's got, that Sirius Black," grinned Peeves.

Dumbledore gave directions to most of the faculty members present, but to Remus he just nodded. Remus recalled the man's months-earlier remark: _You are the best chance we have of figuring out how Sirius Black thinks._

Not that it took much figuring. He flew from floor to floor, checking secret passages. Four he found protected, and a fifth he found blocked. The sixth would have been his own last choice; the statue of the old crone was not in a deserted section of the school, and the passageway was barely wide enough for a boy to squeeze through. Sirius had, by the time he reached adulthood, been a tall and muscular man. He could not have climbed in or out quickly unless he had lost a great deal of weight while on the run.

Though Remus had managed to attain a respectable height, his own form would always remain slight thanks to his monthly transformation. He had little trouble climbing into the passageway. "Lumos!"

As far as he could see, he was alone.

"SIRIUS! PADFOOT! GET BACK HERE!" There was no reply. He had not expected that to work in any case.

"Accio Sirius!" He concentrated as hard as he could, but the spell did not take effect. Sirius was not in the tunnel.

Tiredly, Remus checked the secret rooms that might have been near Sirius' escape route, but he found nothing. At three o'clock in the morning, the search was called off, and by evening Remus was succumbing to the throes of the wolf. He had remembered to leave a mirror out so that he could, for the first time, get a good look at his alter ego. He had not remembered to tell Dumbledore about Padfoot. Or Padfoot's hobbies.

When he awoke the next morning, he was guilty, tired, and depressed. The transformation left him feeling too ill to move, although he did manage to clothe himself. That would lessen the humiliation when someone came in to ensure that he had not broken out of the castle and eaten an innocent passerby. He closed his eyes once more, and opened them to the gentle touch of Madam Pomfrey.

"You should come to the hospital wing," she told him.

"No," he croaked reflexively before remembering his manners. "Madam Pomfrey, it really isn't necessary to trouble yourself. I'm not hurt, only tired."

"You have a temperature," she informed him.

"That hardly merits my taking up your time--"

"Nonsense. You're just as bad as when you were a student, if not worse." He submitted to the rest of her examination. "Very well," she sighed. "You may stay here, but you are not to attempt to teach under any circumstances. Someone can take over for you."

"Thank you," said Remus wearily. He fell back on his pillows as soon as the nurse left, and reminded himself to tell Dumbledore about Sirius as soon as he felt better. His symptoms abated none too quickly, however, and he missed not only a full day of classes but a Quidditch match featuring Gryffindor. Dumbledore, looking as angry as he had ever seen him, called an emergency staff meeting at which Remus was informed that a hoard of dementors had gotten loose and that Harry had had the predictable reaction. He had fallen from his broom, and while he had thankfully escaped unhurt, the broom itself had hit the Whomping Willow. _One more cause for guilt._

He returned to classes full of students who were eager to tell him that he was in all ways superior to Severus, and once again he could not help but be reminded of Sirius. Still, he could hardly spend his time anguishing over Sirius when his students had all been assigned an essay on werewolves.

It was nice to see that sometimes people did things which were entirely in character. Severus Snape had never bothered to grow up.

"We don't know anything about werewolves!" one student after another cried indignantly. Irony was another nice thing. Un-assigning the homework Severus had assigned was also great fun, although several students had already completed the assignment.

The seventh-year Gryffindors were particularly perturbed by Severus' actions. Several of them were deeply interested in their curriculum, which consisted of advanced spells that protected against curses and hexes. That, Remus supposed, was only natural; Gryffindors were famous for fancying themselves heroes and often wanted to become aurors or Hit Wizards. He allowed them to complain themselves out; Severus' behavior had bordered on unconscionable.

He was about to turn his attention back to the lessons Severus had pre-empted when Percy Weasley raised his hand. "Sir, may I ask one question?"

"Of course, Percy."

"How do you think Sirius Black got into the castle on Halloween?" The other students leaned forward in their seats, obviously keen to hear Remus' reply.

"I have no better idea than anyone else," he replied non-committally.

"Isn't there a certain type of Dark Magic that could be of use to him?" inquired another student.

Remus forced a laugh. "You are asking me questions that the finest experts in the Ministry of Magic have not been able to answer. He might have temporarily overpowered the spells protecting the castle without leaving a trace." _He might have, but he did not._

"Do you agree with the way the Ministry of Magic has handled the situation?" asked Oliver Wood, the Gryffindor Quidditch captain.

"I don't believe in sending dementors to a school full of children and young adults who are attempting to learn their lessons, no."

Percy suddenly grew rigid in his seat. "The Ministry would never do something that isn't safe!" he protested.

"I know that your father works for the Ministry, and I mean no offense, but dementors are by definition unsafe. No creature that dangerous has any business wandering among eleven-year-olds." _Hypocrite_. "You saw the damage they caused on the Hogwarts Express."

"Not as much damage as Black would have caused."

"Black is one human being and he was not there."

Percy clearly disagreed. "The only thing the Ministry did wrong was allowing Black to run about Azkaban unrestrained. Perhaps they should have executed him while they had him." Several of his classmates nodded in concurrence. "The laws have to be enforced!"

"Execution might have been kinder than twelve years of torture," Remus suggested.

"Some people deserve to be tortured," said Percy with a coldness Remus would not have expected from him. But Percy was old enough to remember the last war, and Remus reminded himself that Percy had no reason to see Sirius as anything but the cause of his suffering.

The only class more vehement in its protestations of Severus' teaching style was Harry's. Remus pulled Harry aside after dismissing the class, but Harry only repeated what Remus already knew. And then, without being prompted, almost as if he knew that he was talking to a friend, Harry demanded: "_Why_? Why do they affect me like that? Am I just--?"

And Remus said everything that he had not said on the Hogwarts Express. That Harry's inability to cope with dementors had nothing to do with weakness. That his past was full of horrors most of his classmates could not contemplate. That Harry had nothing to feel ashamed of. Apparently Harry believed him, because he took his trust one step further. "When they get near me-- I can hear Voldemort murdering my mum." Remus' first instinct was to grasp Harry's shoulder, but he quickly thought better of it. _Harry has no idea who you are, and even less idea what you are. You have no right to touch him_. Remus rarely had physical contact with anyone unless he was being examined by a nurse. No one would voluntarily touch a werewolf, and he had no desire to force that position upon anyone-- least of all upon James' son. The conversation continued smoothly until Harry, like so many other students, brought up the name that was in the air. "Sirius Black escaped from them. He got away…"

Remus might have been imagining the accusation in Harry's voice; but perhaps not. He dropped his briefcase and caught it again. _I LET HIM GET AWAY, HARRY! I DID!_ Harry obviously did not hear Remus' unspoken message, because he promptly began to beg Remus to teach him the Patronus Charm. _I'm the last person you want teaching you. _

But Remus acquiesced. It was difficult to resist James' double.

The winter holidays allowed Remus to postpone Harry's plans for a private lesson. The full moon fell on Christmas Eve, and while Remus opted to spend most of Christmas day in his egregiously comfortable bed, he still heard the castle's newest bit of gossip.

"Remus?" Minerva's voice called from his fire.

"Yes, Minerva?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I must ask you a rather important question."

"It's no bother," Remus replied curiously.

"Did you by any chance send Potter a Firebolt?"

"A Firebolt? One of those new racing brooms?"

"Correct."

"No, I did not." To Remus' knowledge, the brooms cost more than he would make in a year at Hogwarts

"Do you suspect that another of Harry's father's friends might anonymously send him a top-of-the-line racing broom?"

Remus suppressed a shudder. Few things said "Sirius" better than an expensive broom. "Yes, I do."

"We agree, then. Don't worry. It's been confiscated."

In spite of this new indication that Sirius was alive and well and apparently shopping-- although probably not in canine form-- Remus fell back to sleep soon after speaking to Minerva.

"_Hark, the Herald Angels shout, one more day 'til we get out!" a student Remus did not know sang in a terribly off-key voice._

_James grimaced. "I hope someone teaches him how to make Perfect Pitch Potion. Soon."_

"_Very soon," Sirius added._

"_Very very soon," James continued._

_Peter and Remus tuned out their friends' predictable routine. Peter held a book open in his hands, and they bent over it together as they walked. Remus promised himself that, should he ever become a professor, he would never hold an exam on the last day of class before a major holiday._

"_1215 or 1512?" Remus asked frantically. He did not habitually wait until the last moment to study, but the end-of-the-term crunch had been particularly bad, and this unit of History of Magic was particularly dull. _

"_1215," said Peter soothingly. "Relax. You're never like this before a test. People will start to think you're me."_

_Remus laughed. "I wish. Since you seem to know the answers."_

"_So will you if you calm down. And if all else fails, my parchment will be near the edge of my desk and I'll write clearly."_

"_Thanks." Remus had no real intention of cheating-- it was an easy habit to get into and a hard habit to break, particularly when one was part of a group with great cheating potential-- but the offer reassured him._

"_Is Moony done panicking?" asked James, waltzing easily between Peter and Remus. "I hope I didn't overhear anything about cheating. As a prefect--"_

"_--And leading candidate for Head Boy--" Sirius added._

"_--I cannot condone such childish and potentially hurtful behavior."_

"_Unless of course you have something to blackmail him with," Sirius completed. _

_Remus wrinkled his brow in thought. "Would the fact that he and the leading candidate for Head Girl were out well past curfew last night be a good start?"_

"_An excellent start!" agreed Sirius._

"_We were studying," growled James, his sense of humor suddenly decreased. _

"_In Hogsmeade? Over butterbeer?" inquired Sirius._

"_That's irrelevant."_

"_What's wrong with studying with us?" _

"_Studying with you is like watching you do a crossword puzzle. It just makes me feel stupid. Remus, obviously, didn't study. And Peter had detention last night. Finally, I am going to spend all of the holiday with you. Lily's going home." James' newfound scowl deepened._

"_Did you tell her that you can't stand the thought of being away from her and you think you'll die if she doesn't change her mind and stay?"_

"_She wants to meet her sister's fiancé."_

"_And compare him to you?"_

"_She says she and Petunia don't have the same taste."_

"_That's a relief. I'd hate to think that there's more than one girl out there who's willing to date you."_

"_Better hope Lily isn't listening," Peter broke in._

_Remus looked up the corridor. "No, she's studying. Like we should be."_

"_Guess you didn't get much done last night after all, Prongs," snickered Sirius._

"_Watch. We'll be the first two out of the room."_

"_After you hand in blank rolls of parchment because you'd rather snog than pass."_

_The banter slowed as they entered the classroom, and, true to his word, James was the first to complete the exam. Lily, however, obviously intended to check her work carefully, and when James stood outside the door and encouraged her to hurry, she waved him off._

_Sirius, Remus, and Peter, after exchanging nods, left the room as one. James was nowhere to be found, and he had taken the Marauder's Map and his Invisibility Cloak with him. They expected to find him in a sour mood when he finally arrived for dinner, having seen Lily off, but he was smiling and happy._

"_Prongs? What have you been doing?" asked Sirius with a raised eyebrow._

"_You remember that awful singing we were subjected to on the way to History of Magic?"_

"_Yes."_

"_I decided that no one deserves to be subjected to that."_

"_All right."_

"_Except the Slytherins."_

"_Goes without saying."_

"_So the inevitable happened."_

"_What have you done?"_

"_Done? Me?" James was the picture of innocence. _

_He remained the picture of innocence when Dumbledore, accompanied by the Slytherin Head of House, stood before the students who had chosen to remain over the winter holiday. The number was fairly large; Lord Voldemort grew more powerful with each passing day and parents gained peace of mind from leaving their children in Albus Dumbledore's care. _

"_I understand that many of you are full of end-of-term high spirits. I salute you. However, the ending of the term does not grant you permission to behave in a way that is disrespectful to your colleagues. There was an incident in the Slytherin Common Room this afternoon. I greatly appreciate music, but it is not acceptable to make music for the sole purpose of insulting your comrades. In these difficult times, it is more important than ever that we all work together. The perpetrator may confess himself or herself to me, or he or she will be found out through other means and punished more severely."_

"_We already have our suspicions," the Slytherin Head of House added. "A limited number of students are capable of performing magic at this level, and a limited number of students were free this afternoon. Please remember that in addition to detention and loss of points, you may lose the right to attend a feast or a Hogsmeade weekend. You may lose your position on your Quidditch team. You may lose the right to wear a prefect's badge." Remus was certain that half of the eyes in the room were fixed on James. James did not blink._

"_You may resume eating," Dumbledore announced. As Dumbledore sat down, however, several suits of armor marched into the Great Hall. They were singing. The singing was not unusual in and of itself, as they were often enchanted to sing Christmas carols, but the words were a surprise:_

"_O come, all ye faithful_

_Joyful and triumphant,_

_O come ye, O come ye to Slytherin;_

_Come and behold them,_

_Born to serve a Dark Lord:_

_O come let us abhor them_

_O come let us abhor them_

_O come let us abhor them_

_Snape's the worst!_

_See how Slytherins_

_All act mean and nasty_

_Teasing the firsties who can't yet fight back_

_We too will thither_

_Spit in their direction:_

_O come let us abhor them_

_O come let us abhor them_

_O come let us abhor them_

_Snape's the worst!_

_Lo! They know curses,_

_Meant to murder children;_

_Offer to duel with them and put them away_

_We to the Slytherins_

_Bring our favorite dungbombs:_

_O come let us abhor them_

_O come let us abhor them_

_O come let us abhor them_

_Snape's the worst!_

_Slytherins are stupid_

_Dumb and also brainless_

_They do not even know how to wash their hair_

_Who would not hate them_

_Hating us so dearly?_

_O come let us abhor them_

_O come let us abhor them_

_O come let us abhor them_

_Snape's the worst!"_

_Dumbledore at last raised his wand and silenced the suits of armor. Their jaws banged shut, and the hall was silent but for a few suppressed snickers. "Look at the Slytherins," Sirius muttered. Some of them looked angered, but others were smirking. Remus wondered if they truly did know curses meant to murder children._

"_You might've gone a bit far," Remus murmured from the corner of his mouth._

"_What d'you mean?" asked James._

"_You have to confess," said Peter, sounding almost shrill. "No one but a Gryffindor would do that, and there aren't many in our year who could. The seventh-years, I think, were in class all day today."_

"_Even if I'd done it, I wouldn't confess." James had gone slightly pale. "They'd never make me Head Boy if I did, and that would mean Lily would be spending half her time with someone else.."_

"_But--"_

"_Be quiet, Peter," interrupted Sirius. "It won't be a problem."_

"_How can you say that?"_

"_I'll take care of it."_

"_How?"_

"_Just eat." Sirius sounded vaguely annoyed. Under ordinary circumstances Remus would have expected Sirius to confess in James' place. However, Sirius had lately been threatened with expulsion as his pranks grew progressively wilder and less funny. He had obeyed most of the school rules recently, and had not lost a single point for Gryffindor in over a month. Such behavior from Sirius would once have been unthinkable. It was obvious that Sirius truly believed his place at Hogwarts was in jeopardy._

_When the meal had ended, Sirius walked back to the portrait of the Fat Lady with Remus, James, and Peter but suddenly turned from them as they gave the password._

"_What?" asked James._

"_See you later. I have a plan," was the only answer he received. _

_James had no option but to join in Peter and Remus' complicated Exploding Snap-Wizard Chess tournament, which stretched on into the early morning hours as they waited for Sirius. "He's probably with some girl," James said hazily, but he did not sound as though he believed himself._

_At last, Sirius arrived, looking tired but smiling as usual. "Nothing to worry about," he told James. Collapsing into a chair, he added "Were you all waiting up for me? I'm touched."_

_Peter and James looked at one another and then at Remus. Remus nodded. It was a well-known fact that Sirius did not like to yell at Remus because Remus never yelled back. "What happened, Sirius?" Remus asked calmly._

_Sirius cocked his head as if in consideration. "Well, a lot of Muggles subscribe to something called the Big Bang Theory. I personally think that more wizards would believe in it if they weren't so prejudiced against Muggles. In any case, once our solar system--"_

"_This is all very interesting, but would you mind skipping ahead to what happened to you, personally, tonight?"_

"_Yes, I would mind. I think that you should get everything in perspective."_

"_I assure you that I have exceptional perspective aptitude." Sirius did not look convinced. "Did you go see Dumbledore?"_

"_Yes," Sirius answered. "Now, Dumbledore is well over a hundred years old and he could give you some perspective, I'm sure."_

"_What did Dumbledore give you?"_

"_A night polishing trophies, and all day Christmas doing the same. Twenty-five from Gryffindor."_

"_You confessed for James?" Remus asked, somewhat alarmed. Sirius had been lucky his punishment had not been worse._

"_You confessed for me? What are you, mad?" James broke in._

"_Just a bit," said Sirius agreeably. "They brought Binns in, and you know he doesn't even know our names. It was quite easy to convince him that I was the one who left the exam first and had enough time to do the crime. I convinced Dumbledore and McGonagall that I'm just a poor, confused child who grew up during a war and sometimes doesn't understand how to handle his feelings appropriately. No one tried to expel me. The Slytherin contingent wanted my spot on the Quidditch team, but Dumbledore flat-out refused. He didn't want to agree to the skipping the Christmas Feast thing, either, but I told him I didn't mind. I said it was Dickensian and I think he liked that."_

"_You have to skip the feast?" Peter sounded horrified. The Christmas Feast was widely believed to be the best feast of the year. _

"_They're not going to starve me. I get food sent to me; I just have to polish trophies during the feast itself."_

_James shook his head. "The feast aside, your reputation can't take this. I'm going to tell him the truth." He rose to his feet, and Sirius, who had looked exhausted a moment before, jumped up as well. _

"_No. That just makes me a liar. They won't take your prefect's badge, but they won't make you Head Boy, either. You want Lily to be Head Girl with Snape as Head Boy?"_

"_No, but I don't want you to--"_

"_Don't worry about me. No permanent damage." Sirius looked at James thoughtfully. "Why did you do it?"_

"_I don't even know. Just in a bad mood." He chuckled. "The song wasn't up to standard, was it?"_

"_You should have put in more about his hair," said Peter seriously. Soon afterwards, they headed for their dormitory, and spent the first few days of their holiday sleeping and searching for secret rooms._

_On Christmas, they awoke to piles of gifts but left them unopened. They had decided to put off their celebration until Sirius had served his punishment. Sirius went off to the trophy room without complaint. _

_As the time for the feast approached, Remus, Peter, and James lurked near the entrance to the Great Hall as students and faculty paraded inside, dressed in their best robes. "It's not right," James mumbled. He would likely have said more had Professor McGonagall not passed them by and ordered them inside. _

"_I don't want you three up to something," she said sternly._

"_We aren't," they replied. James tried to angle himself so that his professor was looking at his prefect's badge._

"_Then get inside."_

_Remus shook his head. "I'm not hungry." He was the rare sixteen-year-old boy who could utter this phrase and be believed._

"_Do you feel all right, Lupin?"_

"_Fine. Just not hungry." He watched as she internally calculated the phase of the moon and found that it had been new earlier that week._

"_We didn't eat our breakfast until it was late, Professor," James jumped in. He forced his face into a mask of concern. "Want company, Remus?"_

"_Yes, let's go back to the Common Room," Peter jumped in, recognizing that James was in planning mode. "It wouldn't be the same without Sirius, anyway."_

"_Very well, but no sneaking into the kitchens when you get hungry this evening," McGonagall warned them._

_They assured her that they would never consider doing any such thing._

"_What's going on, Prongs?" asked Peter as soon as they were back inside Gryffindor Tower._

"_Accio, Invisibility Cloak! Accio, Marauder's Map!" James ordered without answering. He handed the map to Peter and put the Cloak on himself. "You two go get all of our presents and I'll get the food."_

"_You just told McGonagall you wouldn't--"_

"_I told her I wouldn't this evening. And I may not bother going to the kitchens, seeing as there's more set out in the Great Hall than anyone would miss." The portrait swung open before Peter could utter another word of protest. Remus grinned._

"_You heard him, Wormtail. Let's go."_

_Less than half an hour later, they burst through the door to the trophy room. Sirius, who had been concentrating on a row of multicolored plaques, looked up sharply. "What are you doing?"_

"_Seems pretty obvious to us," said James, who was still concealed by the Cloak. Sirius reached in the direction of his voice, and James' feet scuffled on the floor. "Watch it! You'll make me drop the turkey!"_

_Sirius sniffed the air, looking very doglike. "You prat! You've actually got a--"_

_James shrugged out of the Invisibility Cloak. It looked as if he had managed to steal most of the contents of the Great Hall. "Put down the trophies. Time for our feast."_

_Sirius snatched half of the food from James. "Not that I'm objecting, but you're almost certainly going to get caught."_

_James grinned wickedly. "I don't know why we didn't think of this before. Not even Flich is going to skip the Feast to supervise you. So we have as much time as the Feast takes."_

"_And we can all get the trophies polished in one-quarter of the time," said Peter with a grin as he unceremoniously dumped a stack of Christmas presents on the floor. Remus followed suit, and James conjured a table cloth from thin air to cover the case on which he was about to deposit the rest of the food. Sirius raised an eyebrow._

_James shrugged. "I do this because I can." Then he smiled. "Happy Christmas."_

"_Happy Christmas," the others repeated in turn._

"_May you all be blessed with the best racing brooms Hogsmeade has to offer," Sirius added._

Remus awoke without the slightest doubt that Minerva was right. Sirius was trying to get to Harry through the Firebolt.

_Perhaps he even saw the match. No one knows to look for a dog_. With a pang of self-loathing, Remus righted himself and began to think of Harry's request. _If I can't protect him by turning Sirius in, at least I can make his life with the dementors easier. I can't very well bring one into the castle to let him practice. But if he is correct, and he would see a dementor in a boggart… _That was a potentially good idea.

He spent the ensuing days combing the castle for a boggart, and was lucky enough to find one before his first meeting with Harry.

The lesson itself progressed better than he could have hoped. Harry was powerfully magical and even more powerfully determined. He fought stubbornly and was knocked unconscious once, then twice. The second time, Remus had great difficulty in bringing his student around. "Harry! Harry . . . wake up . . . ."

Harry came back to himself groggily. Remus could barely make out the boy's garbled words. "I heard my dad. That's the first time I've ever heard him-- he tried to take on Voldemort himself, to give my mum time to run for it…" Harry trailed off, crying unconsciously, but Remus hardly noticed. Of course James would have tried to let Lily run for it.

Suddenly, Remus wished himself in Harry's place. Most importantly, he would then have been able to spare the thirteen-year-old the horror of reliving his parents' deaths. But secondly, Harry had heard James. The smallest echo of James would have been welcome even after so many years. "You heard James?"

Harry had dried his tears and now looked directly at Remus. "Yeah… Why-- you didn't know my dad, did you?"

_In for a knut, in for a galleon._ "I-- I did, as a matter of fact. We were friends at Hogwarts. Listen, Harry, perhaps we should leave it here for now. This charm is ridiculously advanced … I shouldn't have suggested putting you through this…" _I'm not doing so well, and I can't hear James yelling or Lily screaming_.

Harry insisted, though, and proved himself even more stubborn than his father had been. On his very next try, he mustered the beginnings of a Patronus. And then, as Harry was leaving, he asked the dreaded question to end all dreaded questions. "If you knew my dad, you must have known Sirius Black as well?"

_Yes, he was my friend, too. I adored him. And I can't quite bring myself to hate him despite what he's doing to you._ "What gives you that idea?" _You've noticed that I've betrayed you? You know I know damn well how Sirius got inside the castle?_

"Nothing-- I mean, I just knew they were friends at Hogwarts, too…" _HOW?_

"Yes, I knew him. Or I thought I did. You'd better be off, Harry, it's getting late."

Harry left the room, obviously concerned that he had upset his tutor. _Good. He won't ask again._

He did not. The weekly lessons became a combination of hard work and casual conversations until one evening Remus found his way to the room in a state of shock. The Daily Prophet still rested inside his briefcase.

_Black Kisses_

_By Helena Jackson, special to the Daily Prophet_

_Sirius Black. The name is second only to that of You-Know-Who in striking fear into the hearts of the wizarding population of Great Britain. Our streets have been patrolled by dementors ever since the infamous criminal escaped from the Fortress of Azkaban. However, Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, has insured that such a tragedy will never occur again. _

_Earlier today, Minister Fudge signed a permit which will allow dementors coming in contact with Black to use their most deadly weapon: the Dementor's Kiss. When the Dementor's Kiss is applied, the recipient loses all mental and emotional functions as well as all sense of self. _

_Further details will appear in the later edition of this journal._

Remus did not care to read the later editions. In fact, he did not care to dwell on what he had just read, and so he slept-walk through the day and ignored the buzz of teachers and informed students eager to discuss this latest development in the Sirius Black Soap Opera. Harder to ignore was the clear revelation that he did not want Sirius to be given the Kiss. He had never been in favor of torture; a lifetime of lycanthropy had convinced him that he would not wish the worst fates which wizardry had devised on anyone.

Furthermore, Sirius was not "anyone." The whole of Hogwarts was full of memories of Sirius, who had black hair and mischievous eyes and a constant grin and clever ideas and boundless compassion and ridiculous jokes and incredible intelligence and far too great a soul to be swallowed by any dementor Remus had yet met. Sirius without a soul was unequivocally wrong.

_You'd rather have a madman running about Hogwarts and trying to finish off the last Potter than see Sirius punished, would you, Lupin?_

His anger at the wizarding world that had condemned him to exile except at those moments when he was risking his life tracking a fugitive or subduing a violent monster had not been attractive, but it had not run deep. In many ways, Remus counted himself lucky. He had been born to parents who had attempted to cure his lycanthropy rather than abandon him as soon as they became aware of the accident. He had met James and Lily and Peter and even Sirius at school, and had had friends who knew of his predicament and reacted with compassion rather than hatred or fear. He had gained the trust of Albus Dumbledore, the most famous wizard in the world, and had been allowed inside the tight community of Hogwarts not once but twice. Seldom had he felt alone or universally disliked; even when his few confidantes were not near, they were _somewhere_, and that made all the difference.

His guilt, which had begun to develop as soon as he had been freed from exile, had been a bit of a vicious cycle. He enjoyed being significant enough to have something to feel guilty about, and then he felt guilty about enjoying the guilt. The guilt was tempered by pain; reminders of his dead friends were everywhere, and memories he had glossed over for more than a decade tormented him in their full glory at every turn.

But the realization that he would never, under any circumstances, hate Sirius was at once anger-inducing and guilt-inducing and damned confusing. Had he been forced to join in the debates about the validity of the Dementor's Kiss as a means of discipline, he would not have known what to say.

Harry's lesson went well, as always, and two days later the fruits of his efforts were displayed. Several of the least savory members of Slytherin House disguised themselves as dementors and stepped onto the Quidditch pitch as Harry flew high above them in pursuit of the Snitch. Even from the stands, Remus heard Harry's cry of EXPECTO PATRONUM! The Patronus itself made him fall back in his seat.

_Prongs._

_How could he know?_

_Subconscious memories of James?_

_He almost is James all over again._

_And he may die like James all over again._

All of these thoughts slipped from Remus' mind as he rushed to the field with the other supporters of Gryffindor. The students, and more than a few of the professors, were screaming, but Remus felt his way through the raucous band to Harry's side. "That was quite some Patronus," he said quietly.

Harry, alight with happiness, turned to face him. "The dementors didn't affect me at all! I didn't feel a thing!"

Remus was not certain whether he wanted to give Harry another moment of believing he had completely mastered the spell or whether he wanted to give the boy an opportunity to see his archrival caught red-handed. The latter idea won out. He drew Harry away from the wild crowd to the four struggling perpetrators. "You gave Mr. Malfoy quite a fright," he informed Harry. Minerva was busily telling off the guilty parties, and celebration surrounded the Gryffindors and their supporters until that night.

Remus and the other professors were summoned by Dumbledore in the early hours of the morning and informed that Sirius had once again broken into the castle. This time, he had gotten into Harry's dormitory and has slashed the curtains hanging around Ron's bed. _He was off by less than a wandlength._

Remus now knew which tunnel to check, but once again the delay had been too long. Though he ran all the way to Hogsmeade casting spells ahead of him as he went, he found no sign of Sirius.

And in an ugly part of his mind, he was glad.

He had not looked forward to a weekend so shamelessly since his student days. When it came, most of the students went off to Hogsmeade, and Remus caught up on his grading until Severus' voice intruded on his sanctuary. "Lupin! I want a word!"

Remus hastened to obey. In a few more days, he would further indebt himself to Severus with the arrival of the full moon. "You called, Severus?" he asked after clambering through the fire into Severus' office.

"I certainly did!" Severus was angry, and Harry was present. Severus thrust a well-worn, well-loved piece of parchment in front of Remus.

Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs greeted Remus from the parchment's surface. Confused by the near-appearances of a childhood friend thought lost forever Remus might have been, but now he had no doubts. Under no circumstances was the Marauder's Map going to remain in Severus' possession. He shot Harry a quick glare to ensure that the boy would remain silent.

When Ron burst in to supply Harry with a none-too-plausible excuse for having a bag of jokes, Remus rushed both boys and the Map outside into the corridor. He caught their attention by informing them that he knew their precious piece of parchment was a map, and gave Harry a terse lecture ending with the reminder that James and Lily had not died so their son could get himself killed for a bag of jokes. He too weak, he reflected to himself, to keep Sirius from Harry; but at least he could keep Harry from Sirius.

Alone in his office once more, he unfolded the Map and stared at it_. Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business. Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git. Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor. Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball._

"Mischief managed," he informed the Map with a tap of his wand. The words vanished, and the Map was hastily hidden in a desk. Remus was not ready to hear from James or Peter just yet, and he certainly did not want to hear from Sirius. The enchanted map would not explain why Sirius had betrayed everyone about whom he had ever claimed to care. _How could the boy who wrote this map grow into the man who did the unthinkable? Perhaps he didn't… perhaps it was a mistake… _Remus rolled his eyes at himself. He had not attempted to justify Sirius' behavior since the day the Ministry of Magic had told him of the charges to be brought against Sirius.

_It would be better for Sirius if he was guilty_, Remus reflected. _Imagine being imprisoned for twelve years for something you didn't do._

The rhythm of Hogwarts returned. The full moon rose and set. Classes were taught and essays were graded. Severus made snide remarks in Remus' direction. Harry came to Remus for weekly anti-dementor lessons. Lily and James were never again mentioned; Harry stuck to more neutral subjects such as Ron and Hermione's feud. Ron was apparently convinced that Hermione's cat had eaten his rat.

The lessons ended a few weeks before Gryffindor's final Quidditch match. Gryffindor emerged victorious and took the Quidditch Cup. At last, there were final exams to be given and a final dose of Wolfsbane to be taken.

_I may miss Severus this summer_, Remus admitted to himself. _That's a first._

Another first-- at least for recent times-- was his survival of the school year. The Defense Against the Dark Arts position may have been cursed, but Remus had experience with curses. Severus, Harry, Sirius, and assorted ghosts were nothing compared to his monthly transformations. Remus might have neglected to give Dumbledore some highly relevant information, but Harry was safe nonetheless. The trial was over.

He was aware that others among the Hogwarts population had no reason to be happy. Hagrid's beloved hippogriff was set to be executed, and Remus knew that kind-hearted Harry was likely to sneak out of the castle to visit his friend.

_If only I had a way to know when Harry leaves._

Remus smirked to himself.

_Wait. I do._

The Map was not so disconcerting when it had a purpose to serve. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he told it. Failing to mention Sirius' alter-ego for an entire year certainly qualified as "no good." It was, in fact, about as far from good as Remus had ever been.

And then, despite the fact that Severus had not yet delivered his potion, and despite the fact that the full moon was set to rise imminently, and despite the fact that Dumbledore should have been informed of this new development, and despite the fact that he was far too involved in the situation at hand to be objective, he found himself flying along the passageway to the Shrieking Shack.

The labeled dot on the Map was burned into his eyelids.

The dot was labeled "Sirius Black."

_This is not an auspicious ending to the year…_


	3. Padfoot

**June 1994-June 1995**

Padfoot glared into the darkness. _Wormtail_. He had had only one thought for as long as he could remember, and that was the thought of catching the rat and disposing of it as it deserved. _Wormtail_. _Wormtail Wormtail Wormtail Wormtail Wormtail Wormtail Wormtail Wormtail Wormtail Wormtail._

The name beat out an ugly tattoo on his blood. _Wormtail_. It pulsed with each heartbeat and sounded with each breath. _Wormtail_.

The time was near and Padfoot knew it. _Wormtail_ was in the groundskeeper's residence, and _Wormtail_ knew that Padfoot knew.

Padfoot would not be tricked.

He had all the time in the world. He could wait. Time lost meaning in the place from which he had come.

_For something with no meaning, however, time was an obsession. What was the year? And how old did that make-- James' son? He remembered James because he saw him, dead, dying, bleeding, accusing every day. Lately, though, he had had days in which he could not remember the given name of James' son. It made sense. Azkaban called for the abandonment of all hope, and a child was the embodiment of hope. A child meant that James would not truly die, not for many, many years._

_How many years had it been? Sometimes he could keep track of the months by the full moon. The full moon was something he would never forget, not as long as he knew who he was and what he could do. Full moons meant wrestling with werewolves and wrestling with werewolves meant becoming a dog. Becoming a dog meant a temporary reprieve from the guilt and even the cold._

_It was easier to keep track of the years. Each time the Minister of Magic inspected the prison, that was a year. The visits broke the monotony. It was interesting to see real human beings rather than dementors. It was interesting to see how they shook and shivered even though the dementors were kept out of their ways as they inspected their precious torture chambers. It was interesting to realize that Cornelius Fudge, and not Barty Crouch, had been given the job as Minister of Magic; it was nice to see that the public did not support sending your own son to Azkaban to die. Sirius liked to think that it was the secret, unmarked death of the younger Crouch that had somehow lost his father his lifelong goal._

_Unfortunately, visits from the Minister of Magic required human form, and so Sirius found himself lying boredly in his cell. It was not difficult to tell when the Minister was to arrive. On the day before a visit, magical mops and brooms flooded the corridors of Azkaban and attempted to make the edifice look as if it were not full of prisoners entirely abandoned to the dubious mercy of the dementors. In some cases, cells were cleaned as well and even the odd prisoner found himself hosed down with icy water._

_As Sirius had his wits about him, he was ignored in such hasty clean-up operations. He looked just as the model Azkaban prisoner should with the exception of the fact that he did not rock back and forth in the corner of his cell, wrists locked around knees. He rarely cried. He had not screamed for years. Though his hair was matted and his person filthy-- why attempt to have things otherwise when no one saw you?-- he was healthy, and his eyes were relatively bright. He was clearly aware of his surroundings. _

_Come to think of it, he was not such a model prisoner. Though he had grown more forgetful (what was the boy's name?) over the years, he showed few signs of mental decay. He knew his name. He knew where he was, and why._

_Fudge would find him quite disturbing._

_Sirius did not remember that, years ago, he would have thought it great fun to disturb Fudge. Great fun had vanished long ago; fun was happiness, and happiness called the dementors, and one never deliberately called the dementors._

_When Fudge's footsteps, and the footsteps of his escorts, at last sounded down the corridor, Sirius sat up slightly. Fudge peered into the cell directly across from Sirius. The man inside had been there for five years--had murdered a Hit Wizard-- and was babbling incoherently to himself. He shrieked in his sleep on occasion but was otherwise of no interest to Sirius. He never looked up, though, and was therefore never able to see the large black dog that often took Sirius' place. However, it was unlikely that he would be believed if he did claim that Sirius had such a "pet."_

_Fudge turned abruptly from the moaning, gibbering lump of flesh. "No less than he deserved," he said firmly. "And here we have… Sirius Black."_

"_That's correct," said Sirius._

_Fudge stared at him. "What did you say?"_

"_I said you were correct. I'm Sirius Black. I see you've done your homework."_

_Fudge whirled on his escorts as if Sirius were no longer present. "Do they often speak rationally? Have any of the others seemed lucid to you?" The junior ministers only shook their heads dumbly._

"_Not usually," Sirius interrupted. "You could have gotten a good conversation out of the Lestranges a few years ago, but they're quiet now."_

"_Oh."_

"_Just trying to be helpful. I know you'd like to make a thorough inspection and I know you're pressed for time. Things going well at the Ministry?"_

"_Well enough." Fudge gestured at his companions. "Let's go."_

"_Wait!" Sirius' eyes lit on the copy of the Daily Prophet under Fudge's arm. "Are you done with that newspaper?"_

_Nervously, Fudge looked at the paper as if he had never seen it before. "Can't do any harm, can it?" Sirius did not respond, and Fudge slowly pushed the paper through the bars, recoiling when Sirius grasped it in his own hand. "Easy."_

"_Thank you. It's been a long time since I've done the crossword."_

_Fudge walked off as if in a haze and Sirius celebrated his new possession. He glanced down at the date. July, 1993. That meant . . . ninety-three minus eighty . . . the baby had been born in July . . . thirteen . . . almost twelve years in prison and thirteen since he had become a godfather. It was easier to do math when the dementors had settled down for Fudge's sake. If the dementors were present, mental calculations involved a monotonous train of "three I am innocent minus I am innocent zero I am innocent is three I am innocent and nine I am innocent minus I am innocent eight I am innocent is one I am innocent making thirteen. Almost thirteen, but still a baby in Sirius' mind._

_He casually opened the paper and almost immediately dropped it. There, emblazoned on the parchment, was a photograph of nine smiling, waving wizards and witches. Sirius' attention was drawn not to them but to the rat perched on the youngest(?) boy's shoulder. _

_He looked familiar._

_He had a missing toe._

_And Sirius knew bloody well how that toe had gotten to be missing. _

_He looked at the caption that matched the photograph: "The Weasley family will be spending a month in Egypt, returning for the start of the new school year at Hogwarts, which five of the Weasley children currently attend."_

_Wormtail was going to Hogwarts._

_Wormtail would be at Hogwarts with HARRY! HARRY! _

_Sirius paced furiously about his cell until he fell asleep on his feet. Because the dementors could not feed off of fury, Sirius did not notice their return. He awoke full of ideas._

_It was simple. He knew that now. He had never applied himself to escaping before because the danger Wormtail presented to Harry had not been foremost in his mind. The dementors could not see, and they could not truly sense his canine form. He was thin enough to slip between the bars of his cell… it could work! Carefully, doing his best to make no noise, he left the room that had been his home for twelve years without a backward glance._

_Padfoot was glad that it was summer. His coat was thick, but the water that needed to be swum across was too cold even so._

_The one person in the world who remembered him and might hear him out was Remus. It would be difficult to find Remus; but luckily, the back dog was inconspicuous, and when a Gringotts record book, complete with current addresses, passed his way, he had no trouble finding his much desired information._

_The travel was long and hard, but Padfoot knew Moony and could find him-- and find him he did, in a cottage on the outskirts of a wizarding village. He transformed. _

"_Remus!"_

_Remus turned slowly, clearly recognizing his old friend's voice. "Sirius." He raised his wand._

"_No, no, Remus, listen first! We-- we switched Secret-Keepers. Wormtail-- Wormtail was the one who betrayed them and served the Dark Lord and blew up the street and framed me and now he's after Harry and he can get to him--"_

"_Be quiet, Sirius," Remus interrupted in an icy voice. "That is the single stupidest story I have ever heard. If you're going to lie to me, you could at least have a bit of respect for my intelligence."_

"_NO!" Sirius reached for the newspaper with the photograph, but he seemed to have lost it. "I-- I--"_

"_Even if I believed you, you disgusting excuse for an excuse for a human being, I would still kill you. Changed Secret-Keepers? Didn't tell me? Didn't trust me? Changed to someone who betrayed them? Means you as good as killed them. And now I'll kill you. Goodbye, Sirius."_

"_NO! NO! KILL ME, FINE, I'LL DIE, BUT YOU HAVE TO LOOK OUT FOR HARRY! PETTIGREW! HE'S AT HOGWARTS! HE'S AT--"_

"_AVADA KEDAVRA! I WON'T MISS YOU, SIRIUS! NO ONE EVER DID!"_

_Sirius awoke again and slapped himself across the face to make certain that he was truly awake this time. He was._

_His real escape went much as his dreamed escape had. He was unable to slip through the bars, but when the door was opened to allow the delivery of food, he moved easily past the dementor. He decided it best, though, to forget about Remus. It was Wormtail and Harry who were important._

_And so, after a quick detour to the house in which Harry had spent his formative years, Sirius traveled to the Forbidden Forest. He emerged only to watch Quidditch matches-- priorities, after all-- and to rummage for supplies. His most useful acquisition turned out to be a Muggle pen, which was easier to transport than its wizarding equivalent. The pen allowed him to send a note with a most impressively magical cat to the shop in Hogsmeade which sold broomsticks. A new broomstick for my godson, please, the most impressive one you've got-- seeing as the last one hit the Whomping Willow. A Firebolt, a Firebolt, who wouldn't want a Firebolt?_

_Twice he broke into the castle, and twice he failed to capture Wormtail. Still failing James after so many years. The cat said that Wormtail had faked his death and framed it-- and Sirius felt a strong kinship for the animal._

_But he was secure in the knowledge that Wormtail would pay. _

And then there was a hideous, long-awaited squeaking. _Wormtail. Wormtail's blood. Now!_ Padfoot rapidly closed the distance between them. A heavy object had thrown itself atop Wormtail, and Padfoot did not care. If the thing-- the boy-- thought he could protect the rat, he was sadly mistaken. Another figure, vaguely familiar, rose in his path, and he barreled over it, barely feeling it. Wormtail was near. _Wormtail! _The rat's protector was hollering, and they drew nearer and nearer the Whomping Willow.

Just in time, Padfoot clamped his jaws around the boy's wrist and dragged him into the depths of the tree. He did not bother to poke the knot at the tree's base, as he once would have done. Pain was meaningless to him now, and he had no intention of delaying and losing sight of his prey. For a moment, something held him back, but then there was loud, satisfying crack and he was running, running, running down the tunnel. No one would find them here and the deed would be done.

He dragged his prey up the stairs and then transformed. He needed to have some final words with Wormtail. In human form, it became more obvious that the boy-- Weasley-- had broken his leg during the rush through the tunnel. _Damn! The snap…_ But Weasley was a magical child and he would heal.

Sirius gathered the injured boy into his arms. Weasley's mouth had opened, but at first he did not speak. The silence did not last long. "YOU! YOU'RE AN ANIMAGUS! SIRIUS BLACK! GET OFF OF ME!"

"I'm not going to hurt you," Sirius said in a raspy voice even as he wrenched the wand from the boy's hand and threw it across the room.

"GET AWAY!"

"I'm just going to put you on the bed. Your leg--" Sirius placed Weasley on the bed as gently as he could.

"STAY AWAY!" The boy, struggling against Sirius, lost his balance and slipped from the bed. He landed hard on his wounded leg and was temporarily silenced by pain.

The great cat leapt into the room and landed on the bed. _The other two can't be far behind. It's what James would have done_. For, partially freed from his blood-lust, Sirius had realized that one of Weasley's escorts had been none other than Harry. It made sense. They shared a dormitory, after all.

Sirius collected the wand and then slid into the shadows near the half-open door to await their arrival. It came.

"Ron-- are you okay?" cried the girl.

"Where's the dog?" added Harry.

"Not a dog," Weasley-- Ron-- moaned. "Harry, it's a trap--"

"What--" All three were well inside the room, and Sirius stood on his toes, ready to act.

"He's the dog. He's an Animagus…"

Sirius threw the door shut and stepped out of the shadows. "Expelliarmus!" he cried. He had waited for this moment for more than twelve years. _I'm in control, Wormtail. Every wand in the room in my hand. Harry right here for the explanation. Harry._

"I thought you'd come and help your friend. Your father would have done the same for me. Brave of you, not to run for a teacher. I'm grateful… it will make everything much easier…"

Any illusions Sirius might have harbored about Harry's somehow remembering long-ago days of playing with his godfather vanished as Harry started forward, a look of pure loathing on his face. It was the same expression of hatred that James' face always wore in Sirius' dreams. Ron and the girl, though, pulled Harry back, and Harry did not right away get the chance to tell Sirius what Sirius already knew: that he had killed Lily and James.

"If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us, too!" Ron exploded. Through his hate, Sirius felt something akin to amazement. _Standing on that leg again? He reminds me of me… but they didn't have to kill me to kill James, did they?_

"Lie down," he told Ron, although he did not truly expect Ron to obey. "You will damage that leg even more."

"Did you hear me? You'll have to kill all three of us!"

_Killing_. _Wormtail_. Time was running short. "There will be only one murder here tonight." He smiled, and the smile made his face ache. He hardly cared.

"Why's that?" Harry was struggling against his friends. "Didn't care last time, did you? Didn't mind slaughtering all those Muggles to get at Pettigrew! What's the matter, gone soft in Azkaban?" The girl was begging him to be quiet, but Harry was unmoved. "HE KILLED MY MUM AND DAD!" _There it is. About time you said it. _

Harry, like James, was exceedingly stubborn. He wrenched himself away from his restraints. Wandless though he was, he ran forward toward Sirius. Sirius raised the wands, but not quickly enough, and suddenly a bundle of punching, screaming, clawing thirteen-year-old had thrown itself onto him. He was underweight and he had not braced himself properly, and so Harry was able to knock him backwards. Sirius could do little but hold tight to the wands until he pulled his left hand free and closed his fingers about Harry's throat. "No," he hissed. "I've waited too long."

A sudden kick caused him to lose control of Harry, and when hands clawed at the wands he loosened his grip for just a fraction of a second-- and that was enough. The wands rolled free, and Harry, whose friends were still clutching madly at Sirius, scrambled after them. "NO YOU DON'T!" he yelled. "GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

Harry's command was followed so that Sirius was left lying alone against the far wall. Harry drew his wand. "Going to kill me, Harry?" Sirius whispered.

"You killed my parents." That was true enough.

"I don't deny it. But if you knew the whole story."

"The whole story? You sold them to Voldemort. That's all I need to know."

Sirius had always been in favor of acting first and asking questions later, but if Harry followed suit, the results would be his undoing. "You've got to listen to me," he begged. "You'll regret it if you don't. You don't understand."

"I understand a lot better than you think. You never heard her, did you? My mum… trying to stop Voldemort killing me… and you did that … you did it …"

Harry had no intention of changing his mind, it seemed. Frantically, Sirius tried to find the words that would make Harry wait until he had seen Wormtail, and then, if he still wanted to kill Sirius, Sirius had no real reason to live… A heavy weight fell on Sirius' chest. It was the cat. "Get off," he told it. There was no use in ending the life of one of the most magical creatures he had ever come across.

_Harry you have to listen the boy has a rat that's an Animangus Harry I would never hurt you I never meant to hurt you I want to protect you just let me do it just this one time let me kill the rat and you'll do with me as you wish Harry just let me Wormtail Wormtail Wormtail has to die you're in danger why didn't I start thinking before he's hesitating I had enough time if I'd started then but now it's too late Wormtail Prongs Harry live you have to live but you have to let me stop him tell Dumbledore tell Dumbledore stop him stop him before he does it again why can't I talk why can't I breathe Merlin this is it by Harry's wand I deserve it but I have to tell him and I can't why can't I tell him please why why I have to speak stop Wormtail too long too long--_

And there were footsteps.

_That's Remus I know Remus Remus will fix everything Remus will be all right just another full moon we'll become Animagi a werewolf a werewolf a werewolf in the bed next to mine can you believe it and they tell us the Forbidden Forest safe in the Forbidden Forrest I'll wait and I'll find Wormtail I'll go back to the Forest I can't I'm here James Harry the wand the rat--_

"WE'RE UP HERE! WE'RE UP HERE-- SIRIUS BLACK-- _QUICK_!"

_The footsteps are real!_ Sirius started. It couldn't truly be Remus, but if the distraction lasted long enough he would be able to get out of the house. Surely he knew it better than anyone else.

_That's it. Azkaban didn't snap me but something else obviously has_. Sirius blinked and shook his head, but no matter how he squinted, the new arrival looked like Remus Lupin.

"Expeliarmus!" That was Remus' voice. And Remus was looking him in the eye. "Where is he, Sirius?" _How can he know? He doesn't mean-- but he can see everyone else-- _Not trusting himself to speak, Sirius pointed at the other boy. Weasley. Ron? He'd known … he couldn't recall … memory like a sieve sometimes … "But then … Why hasn't he shown himself before now?" Remus' eyes widened. "Unless he was the one … unless you switched … without telling me?" _Thank Merlin coherency is optional with him_! Slowly, Sirius nodded.

As if in a dream, he saw Remus lower his wand and cross the floor. _Believe me don't hurt me don't kick me forgive me don't touch me don't--_ Remus took Sirius' hand in his own. _Warm. Strong. Safe._ Remus' touch did not feel like Harry's. It felt _good_, and it had been a long, long time since Sirius had felt _good_. Confusedly, he found himself on his feet. He had barely had time to register that Remus must have pulled him up when he felt himself pressed against the other man's body. Robes were in contact with robes and skin was in contact with skin. For seconds that felt like hours he leaned against his solid support, surprised and unable to stand on his own. He was just recalling that the classic response to a hug involved hugging back when a shrill scream pierced the air.

"I DON'T BELIEVE IT!" It was the girl. Remus let go of Sirius, and while Sirius had not entirely understood the sensations that the hug had carried, he now felt utterly bereft. He decided that he hated the girl. "YOU-- YOU-- YOU AND HIM!" Her screeching would not have been out of place in Azkaban. Perhaps she was part banshee.

"Hermione." Remus' voice was different. Remus was composed. "Hermione, calm down."

"I DIDN'T TELL ANYONE! I'VE BEEN COVERING UP FOR YOU!"

"HERMIONE, LISTEN TO ME, PLEASE!" Now Remus was yelling as well. "I CAN EXPLAIN--"

And Harry broke in. "I TRUSTED YOU, AND ALL THIS TIME YOU'VE BEEN HIS FRIEND!"

"You're wrong. I haven't been Sirius' friend, but I am now-- Let me explain …"

"NO!" Hermione the Azkaban Banshee was shrieking again. "Harry, don't trust him, he's been helping Black get into the castle, he wants you dead too-- he's a werewolf!" Sirius stared at Remus. Unless he had changed greatly since their school days … how could this girl have seen through him? Would he lie? Sirius wanted to say something to protect Remus, but words still refused to come.

"Not at all up to your usual standard, Hermione. Only one out of three, I'm afraid. I have not been helping Sirius get into the castle and I certainly don't want Harry dead." Remus shivered, and Sirius knew that he was about to tell the truth. "But I won't deny that I am a werewolf."

The children reacted as if in shock, and the boy with the broken leg whimpered in pain. Remus made a move as if to help him, but the boy pulled back. "Get away from me, werewolf!" _I don't like him, either. Harry needs some new friends. Boy probably knows he's harboring Wormtai _… Remus was asking Hermione how she'd known, and though Sirius had wondered the same thing himself, he suddenly lost the ability to follow the conversation. The words flowed over him, meaningless as the thousands upon thousands of screams of maddened prisoners.

_Wormtail have to get to Wormtail Remus help me help me please please I'm sorry Remus Wormtail he's here don't know what to do have to stop him make them stop stop ignoring me I'm here I'm here I'm not mad don't put me in there I'm innocent I'm Sirius Black and I'm innocent Harry I'm sorry I just want to help you Harry please forgive me please please trust me trust him he's right he'll fix it can't think anymore_

"HE WAS WRONG!" Harry pointed accusingly at Sirius once again. "YOU'VE BEEN HELPING HIM ALL THE TIME!"

_No, Harry. I wouldn't hurt you. I wouldn't hurt Remus. I wouldn't hurt your parents._

_But I did._

Sirius had been shaking since before Remus' arrival, and now the tremors worsened. If he could just make it to the bed, to the bed, one step, two, three, four. There. He buried his face in his hands and tried to will himself away from the place, from the shouting, from the noise. He half-understood Remus' explanations of Marauder's Map and Invisibility Cloak. _Don't forget what's important._

He did not. "Do you think I could have a look at the rat?"

"What?" asked the bigoted boy. "What's Scabbers got to do with it?"

"Everything. Could I see him, please?"

And the bigoted boy pulled Wormtail from his robes. Sirius felt blood pound in his ears and saliva pool in his mouth. It was here.

"What?" the boy repeated. "What's my rat got to do with anything?"

Suddenly, Sirius again recalled how to form words. "That's not a rat."

"What d'you mean-- of course he's a rat--"

"No, he's not," Remus took over. "He's a wizard."

"An Animagus," Sirius completed. "By the name of Peter Pettigrew."

There was a pause before the Bigot asserted that Sirius and Remus were insane and the Banshee proclaimed the entire situation ridiculous.

Harry, for his part, was pointing at Sirius again. "Peter Pettigrew's dead! He killed him twelve years ago!"

Twelve years of rage made Sirius entirely forget his difficulties in speaking. Suddenly, his feelings were quite easily verbalized. "I meant to, but little Peter got the better of me. Not this time, though!" With new strength, he lunged across the bed, straining toward the rat. He was inches away, and then he felt strong arms restraining him. He had decided that he had enjoyed the hug. This, however, he did not appreciate in the slightest.

"Sirius, no! WAIT! You can't just do it like that-- they need to understand-- we've got to explain--"

"We can explain afterwards!" Sirius twisted in Remus' grip. Damn the weight he had lost in Azkaban and on the run! He had never been able to out-wrestle Remus when he didn't out-weigh him.

"They've got a right to know everything! Ron's kept him as a pet! There are parts of it even I don't understand! And Harry-- you owe Harry the truth, Sirius!"

Damn. Remus would know exactly what to say. Sirius stopped moving but kept his gaze fixed on the rat. "All right," he agreed begrudgingly. "Tell them whatever you like. But make it quick, Remus. I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for." He then grew silent. He enjoyed listening to Remus' voice; it had been too long absent. Nonetheless, Remus was trying his patience. "Hurry up, Remus!" he snarled, but Remus put him off. Remus was in perfect control. And he had bloody well better stay in control of the rat, or Sirius… well, he did not know what he would do. But Remus would be sorry. Though not as sorry as Wormtail.

At long last, Remus ended his tale. "… So in a way, Snape's been right about me all along."

In spite of his best attempts to glare at the rat, Sirius' head snapped up. "Snape? What's Snape got to do with it?"

Remus did not look especially happy. "He's here, Sirius. He's teaching here as well." Remus turned to Harry, the Bigot, and the Banshee. "Professor Snape" Sirius cringed at the title "was at school with us. He fought very hard against my appointment to the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. He has been telling Dumbledore all year that I am not to be trusted. He has his reasons … you see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me--"

_Way to make the git sound human, Remus,_ Sirius thought derisively. The news of Snape-- _Snape_-- being allowed to teach at Hogwarts-- _Hogwarts_-- did not sink in easily. _Astonishing. Absolutely astonishing._ "It served him right," Sirius reminded Remus. "Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to… hoping he could get us expelled …"

"Severus was very interested in where I went every month." _Because he was a slimy, nosy git_. "We were in the same year, you know, and we-- er-- didn't like each other very much." _Understate often?_ "He especially disliked James." _James. The rat! Hurry up, Moony!_ "Jealous, I think." _With good reason, I'll admit._ "Snape had seen me" _Spy_! "Sirius thought it would be-- er-- amusing, to tell Snape that all he had to do was prod the knot on the trunk with a long stick, and he'd be able to get in after me. Well, of course, Snape tried it" _His own fault, all of it!_ "if he'd got as far as this house, he'd have met a fully grown werewolf." _Why would anyone think that's a bad thing?_ "Your father, who'd heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life. Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on, he knew what I was…"

"So that's why Snape didn't like you," asked Harry, finally calmed down, "Because he thought you were in on the joke?"

"That's right." _Snape!_ Sirius jumped to his feet. Snape was there, and he had an Invisibility Cloak, probably James' Invisibility Cloak. _How dare he put his dirty hands on it? _Twenty years had passed and Snape still had nothing better to do than lurk about after Sirius and Remus.

"I found this at the base of the Whomping Willow," Snape gloated as he threw away the Cloak. "You've been wondering, perhaps, how I knew you were here? I've just been to your office, Lupin. You forgot to take your potion tonight." _What?_ "And lucky I did. Lucky for me, I mean." _Who else have you EVER cared about?_ "Lying on your desk was a certain map." _Not_… "One glance at it told me all I needed to know. I saw you running along this passageway and out of sight."

"Severus--"

"I've told the headmaster again and again that you're helping your old friend Black into the castle, Lupin." _I'll bet you have._ "Not even I dreamed you would have the nerve to use this old place as your hideout--"

"Severus, you're making a mistake." _As always._ Sirius wondered why Remus was bothering to explain. Snape was not overly likely to listen, was he? "Sirius is not here to kill Harry--"

Snape refused to let Remus finish. "Two more for Azkaban tonight! I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this… He was quite convinced you were harmless, you know, Lupin, a _tame_ werewolf--"

"You fool," said Remus softly and Sirius inwardly rejoiced that his old friend was getting to the point. "Is a schoolboy grudge worth putting an innocent man back in Azkaban?"

Remus had always been quick, and a talented duelist, but he was not prepared when Snape set forth a binding curse. Remus fell to the floor, and Sirius rushed forward _PROTECT REMUS!,_ but Snape had already directed his wand at Sirius. "Give me a reason. Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will_." Since when has Snape needed a reason? _Sirius could do nothing while a wand covered his heart.

Hermione stepped toward her professor. "Professor Snape-- it-- it wouldn't hurt to hear what they've got to say, would it?"

Snape rounded on the child as if she had just suggested that he smile, or wash his hair. "Miss Granger, you are already facing suspension from this school. You, Potter, and Weasley are out-of-bounds in the company of a convicted murderer and a werewolf. For once in your life, hold your tongue!"

"But-- if there was a mistake." Hermione was not to be dissuaded. Sirius changed his mind. He liked Hermione. He liked her a lot. If he survived the night, he might tell her as much.

"KEEP QUIET, YOU STUPID GIRL! DON'T TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Hermione was suitably quieted, and Snape turned back to Sirius. "Vengeance is very sweet. How I hoped I would be the one to catch you…"

Sirius sneered. "The joke's on you again, Severus. As long as that boy brings his rat up to the castle, I'll come quietly."

"Up to the castle?" Snape did not look disheartened. "I don't think we need to go that far. All I have to do is call the dementors once we get out of the Willow. They'll be very pleased to see you, Black… pleased enough to give you a little kiss, I daresay…"

Sirius felt himself pale. All else having failed, he searched for a last resort. Begging Severus Snape. "You-- you've got to hear me out. The rat-- look at the rat--"

Snape did not react. _He's mad. More mad than I am. This can't be done safely_… But Snape did not know the grounds or the Shack the way Sirius did, and while Ron was indisposed, Harry and Hermione would surely react if Sirius got the upper hand… maybe even on the stairs… Sirius planned as Snape ranted at Harry. _Is he even aware that Harry isn't James?_

And then, as if they shared a telepathic connection, Harry, Ron, and Hermione raised their wands. "EXPELIARMUS!" Snape slammed backwards into the wall.

An unconscious Snape had always been Sirius' favorite sort of Snape, but he hardly needed thirteen-year-olds to fight his battles for him. Harry was to some degree at Snape's mercy. "You shouldn't have done that," he told Harry. "You should have left him to me." Freedom, however, was freedom, and Sirius knelt beside Remus. His thin fingers fumbled for a moment about the ropes that bound his friend.

"Thank you, Harry," said Remus when Sirius had released him.

"I'm not saying I believe you," said Harry uncertainly.

"Then it's time we offered you some proof. You, boy-- give me Peter, please. Now."

"Come off it," said the Troublesome Bigot. "Are you trying to say he broke out of Azkaban just to get his hands on Scabbers? I mean… Okay, say Pettigrew could turn into a rat. There are millions of rats. How's he supposed to know which one he's after if he was locked up in Azkaban?"

Sirius opened his mouth to suggest that they put a binding curse on Ron, just temporarily, but Remus looked thoughtful and repeated the question. In response, Sirius removed the crumpled photograph from his robes. "How did you get this?" Remus demanded.

"Fudge. When he came to inspect Azkaban last year, he gave me this paper. And there was Peter, on the front page…" Haltingly, Sirius explained some of the events that had brought him to the Shrieking Shack. Peter's wand… his finger… the cat… fake deaths… It was not as hard as he had thought it might be, not with Snape out of the way and Remus there to guide his words…

And then Harry yelled. "AND WHY DID HE FAKE HIS DEATH? BECAUSE HE KNEW YOU WERE ABOUT TO KILL HIM LIKE YOU KILLED MY PARENTS!"

"No," Remus said, trying to explain, but Harry was having none of it.

"AND NOW YOU'VE COME TO FINISH HIM OFF!"

"Yes," Sirius agreed. "I have."

"THEN I SHOULD HAVE LET SNAPE TAKE YOU!" _How can he not understand? Harry_… "THAT'S NOT TRUE! HE WAS THEIR SECRET-KEEPER! HE SAID SO BEFORE YOU TURNED UP! HE SAID HE KILLED THEM!"

_He's right about that_. Sirius shook his head, and tears filled his eyes. "Harry… I as good as killed them. I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me… I'm to blame, I know it… The night they died, I'd arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he was gone. Yet, there was no sign of a struggle. It didn't feel right. I was scared. I set out for your parents' house straight away. And when I saw their house destroyed, and their bodies… I realized what Peter must've done… what I'd done…"

As it so often had in Azkaban, the ruin of Godric's Hollow rose before Sirius' eyes. Blinking away the tears, he collected Snape's wand, and when he turned around, Remus held the rat. "Ready, Sirius?"

"Together?"

"I think so."

They began the reversal spell. Sirius had not used it for many years; once he and James and Peter had learned to transform properly, there had been no need.

Suddenly, before them, was Wormtail in human form.

"Why, hello, Peter," said Remus. "Long time, no see."

Even Sirius was briefly amused. _Only Remus . . ._ "S-- Sirius… R-- Remus … my friends, my old friends…"

Sirius had heard enough. He raised his wand, only to be retrained and favored with a warning look from Remus. Remus apparently wanted to do the thing thoroughly. _As long as the thing gets done_…

"We've been having a little chat, Peter, about what happened the night Lily and James died," Remus continued. "You might have missed the finer points while you were squeaking around down there on the bed--"

"Remus," groveled Wormtail pathetically. "You don't believe him, do you? He tried to kill me, Remus."

"So we've heard. I'd like to clear up one or two little matters with you, Peter, if you'd be so--"

"He's come to try to kill me again! He killed Lily and James and now he's going to kill me, too." Wormtail continued to spout streams of unbelievable rubbish until at last he dissolved into pathetic sobs. "Remus! You don't believe this… Wouldn't Sirius have told you they'd changed the plan?" _Don't listen to that, Moony, Merlin, that's it, maybe he hasn't thought of it, of course he's thought of it!_

Remus still looked calm. "Not if he thought I was the spy, Peter." He gave Sirius a look that could not possibly have been as casual as it seemed. "I assume that's why you didn't tell me, Sirius?" _He can't intend to let me off that easily._

"Forgive me, Remus," he said, wondering if Remus heard the elaborate plea behind the three simple words. _I'm sorry. I've been sorry for a long time. I miss you. Forgive me for suspecting you. Forgive me for not appreciating your loyalty or your intelligence. Forgive me for taking your friends from you. Forgive me for orphaning Harry. Forgive me for every second you've spent thinking about this mess year after year. Forgive me for the damn Whomping Willow thing!_

"Not at all, Padfoot, old friend." _Friend?_ Remus was rolling up his sleeves as if ready to be both judge and executioner. Sirius nearly missed the end of Remus' statement. "And will you, in turn, forgive me for believing _you_ were the spy?" As if there was a comparison. Was Remus honestly suggesting that they were in this together? He honestly meant it to be that simple?

"Of course." It _was_ that easy! Sirius almost grinned. "Shall we kill him together?" he offered.

"I think so."

Wormtail interrupted them with a gasp. "You wouldn't. You won't!" _We would. We will!_ "Ron," he appealed to the Bigot, "haven't I been a good friend, a good pet? You won't let them kill me, Ron, will you? You're on my side, aren't you?"

The transformation must have erased all doubts from the Bigot's mind, because he looked horrified. "I let you sleep in my _bed_!"

Wormtail must have lost his intelligence along with his dignity, morality, and loyalty, for he continued to plead with the boy. "Kind boy… kind master… you won't let them do it… I was your rat. I was a good pet."

"If you made a better rat that a human, it's not much to boast about, Peter," Sirius broke in, and Wormtail turned his attention to the Banshee.

"Sweet girl … clever girl… you-- you won't let them… help me…" But the Banshee was silent, and Wormtail crawled to Harry in turn. "Harry… Harry… you look just like your father… just like him…"

Begging the Bigot and the Banshee had been bad enough, but _this_! This defied expression. "HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HARRY? HOW DARE YOU FACE HIM? HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT JAMES IN FRONT OF HIM?"

The rat was undeterred. "Harry, Harry, James wouldn't have wanted me killed." _It's hard to say that_, thought Sirius in disbelief, _what with James being dead and distinctly unable to tell us what he thinks about anything. _"James would have understood, Harry v he would have shown me mercy." Sirius shook with rage. _HOW DARE HE EVEN LOOK AT HIM? HOW DARE HE SUGGEST HE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT JAMES? GET AWAY FROM HARRY_! Unthinkingly, Sirius strode forward with Remus beside him. As one, they seized Wormtail's shoulders and threw him backwards. He landed with a not-satisfying-enough thunk.

"You sold Lily and James to Voldemort," said Sirius. "Do you deny it?"

Wormtail began to cry. Somehow, Sirius was unmoved. "Sirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord… you have no idea… he has weapons you can't imagine… I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen… He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me--"

"DON'T LIE! YOU'D BEEN PASSING INFORMATION TO HIM FOR A YEAR BEFORE LILY AND JAMES DIED! YOU WERE HIS SPY!" Briefly, Sirius remembered the Rally of Light, remembered the obvious passage of information, remembered his worry for his _dear_ friend Peter…

"He-- he was taking over everywhere! What was to be gained by refusing him?"

_OF ALL THE IDIOTIC--_ "What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed? Only innocent lives, Peter!"

"You don't understand! He would have killed me, Sirius!"

That was the final straw. Somehow, the whining was even worse than Pettigrew's earlier accusations and inane assertions. Whining, when he had done the indefensible. Whining, when he was alive! Whatever slim amount of self-control Sirius had retained vanished. "THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!" he bellowed. "DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!"

Remus was by Sirius' side, and both raised their wands. "You should have realized," said Remus, his quiet voice a sharp contrast to Sirius' thunderous one, "if Voldemort didn't kill you, we would. Good-bye, Peter." _Eternity in Azkaban with Remus. We'll go mad together. It will be great fun!_

And as they drew breath to end the miserable saga that had begun long ago, one Harry James Potter threw himself in front of Wormtail. "NO!" he cried. "You can't kill him! You can't."

Sirius was reasonably certain that he could. "Harry, this piece of vermin is the reason you have no parents. This cringing bit of filth would have seen you die, too, without turning a hair! You heard him! His own stinking skin meant more to him than your whole family."

"I know," said Harry, and Sirius wondered if he truly did. "We'll take him up to the castle. We'll hand him over to the dementors. He can go to Azkaban, but don't kill him."

Harry sounded just like James always had when he had been in charge. Sirius would not argue, and Wormtail must have known this as well as Sirius himself did. "Harry!" exclaimed Wormtail. "You-- thank you-- it's more than I deserve!" He crawled closer to Harry and threw himself at the boy's feet.

"Get off me!" Harry bellowed. "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it because I don't reckon my dad would've wanted them to become killers, just for you."

Sirius sighed inwardly. Only one human being in the world could have stopped his quest, and he was now before him. "You're the only person who has the right to decide," he admitted. "But think… think what he did…"

Harry's decision was made. Manacles were conjured, and the odd group made its way out of the Shrieking Shack. Sirius made up for his disappointment by banging the still-unconscious Snape's head against the low ceiling of the tunnel. One. Two. Three. The steady sound of bumps and bruises was soothing, and perhaps its calming effect was what allowed an odd thought to occur to him.

He had not committed the crime for which he had been in prison. There was definitely a way to look at this situation that suggested that he was still innocent. "You know what this means?" he asked Harry. "Turning Pettigrew in?"

"You're free," said Harry, who was not so thick when Animagi, werewolves, and vengeful professors were not clouding the picture.

"Yes," Sirius agreed. _He has to know sometime. You've waited long enough, if not by choice._ "But I'm also-- I don't know if anyone ever told you-- I'm your godfather."

"Yeah, I knew that."

_He knew. Bit of mindless trivia for him. He didn't spend twelve years waiting to see you_… _ but you have to offer. He has the right to spit in your face, doesn't he? Why is this more frightening than anything else? Anger is certainly strength-giving._ "Well, your parents appointed me your guardian. If anything happened to them… I'll understand, of course, if you want to stay with your aunt and uncle." It was amazing, really, that Harry even tolerated Sirius' presence. Lily's sister had been very different from James and his friends, and that was all Harry had known. Sirius had lost any claims on the boy's heart long ago. "But, well, think about it. Once my name's cleared… if you wanted… a different home…"

"What-- live with you?" Harry was outraged. He had every right to be, of course. "Leave the Dursleys?" _Understand, I'd never force you._

"Of course, I thought you wouldn't want to. I understand, I just thought I'd--"

"Are you insane?" _It was just a suggestion, don't be angry!_ "Of course I want to leave the Dursleys! Have you got a house? When can I move in?"

_WHAT WAS THAT?_ Sirius turned sharply. "You want to? You mean it?"

"Yeah, I mean it!"

Sirius fairly floated the rest of the way out of the tunnel. He was unable to believe his luck, and then-- "He's not safe!" gasped Hermione. _The full moon!_

He was years out of practice when it came to werewolf-wrestling, but old skills were never forgotten, and all would have been well-- had it not been for the dementors. His blood seemed to freeze as the dementors all at once focused upon him. He forgot Harry. He forgot Remus. Nothing but blood and death _. . . Not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now not now no no no no no no no no no no no no . ._ . "No . . . please . . . ."

And all went dark.

When he awoke, he was bound and gagged and behind a heavily locked door. Flitwick's office? _Been a long time since Hogwarts . . . . _

Cornelius Fudge's voice wafted from beyond the room. "Yes, we have Black. Bring a dementor-- we'll administer the Kiss." Someone took off running down the corridor.

_NO!!_ He struggled, but the bonds were solid.

"Cornelius!"

"Headmaster! Where has Professor Snape gotten to?"

"He's down by the hospital wing, I believe."

"Seeing to the children, no doubt. What an excellent man! You're lucky to have him working here, Headmaster."

"Yes, I believe I am." _For Merlin's sake, WHY?_

"You'll be coming along to speak with him, then?"

"I'll speak with him later. I'd like to see Black first." Sirius stiffened.

"Headmaster, I'm afraid-- no, it's much too dangerous."

"I feel quite confident that I'm able to take care of myself, Minister."

"But-- no, no, there's not even a guard-- he's much too dangerous-- I can't allow--"

"Then I suppose it is lucky for me that this is my school and not yours."

"Headmaster, I must strongly protest--"

"Black is bound and gagged and without a wand. Now, I believe that Professor Snape is awaiting you downstairs." Sirius heard Fudge's grumblings retreat, and then he heard the removal of physical locks and locking charms. He raised helpless eyes as Dumbledore stood before him. "If I remove the gag, will you speak to me? Will you answer my questions?" Sirius nodded as much as he was able, and aged fingers removed the cloth from his mouth. He choked as it peeled away a thin layer of skin.

"Th--" His intended thanks died in the air as he found his mouth too dry and stiff to form words. The smallest flick of Dumbledore's wand brought a glass of water to rest before them. Dumbledore nimbly pulled it into his hand and held it to Sirius' lips. Awkwardly, Sirius swallowed. "Thank you," he managed this time.

"You are welcome."

"How soon will the dementor be here?"

"In perhaps fifteen minutes." A corner of Sirius' mind began to count. How ironic; it had been hard to count in Azkaban, when time stretched on indefinitely, and easy to count here, when time was so short. "I find it most interesting that you did not do any harm to Harry when you had the opportunity. Madam Pomfrey says he is merely unconscious as a result of the dementors' attack."

"I would _never_ do _anything_ to hurt Harry," said Sirius fervently. "Not knowingly. Headmaster--" He broke off. Asking Dumbledore to save his soul was a bit much. He was no longer a fifteen-year-old in trouble for using magic in a corridor.

"I never recall your being so hesitant to speak when you were younger. I would like to hear anything you have to say."

"I should warn you that this story is rather . . . unbelievable. Strange."

"Go on."

Desperately, Sirius wondered where to begin. "When we were second-years here, Peter and James and I came to the conclusion that Remus was a werewolf, and when he told us we were right we wanted to help him. Werewolves aren't a danger to animals so we became Animagi. Unregistered, obviously." Dumbledore raised his eyebrows but gestured for Sirius to continue. "So when James was in danger from Voldemort, later, I-- I couldn't go through with being Secret-Keeper. It was obvious. They'd have found me and tortured me and I'd've talked. And we'd always trusted Peter, and no one would have suspected Peter, so I asked James and Lily to switch without telling anyone. But Peter betrayed them, and when I tracked him down he yelled for the whole street to hear that I'd done it, and then blew up the street. Cut off his own finger when he did it. Took his animal form-- a rat. So when the Minister of Magic came to Azkaban last year, he gave me his newspaper. And there was a story about a family that had won a prize, and one boy-- Harry's friend-- Ron?-- had a rat with a missing toe on his shoulder. The photograph is still in my pocket."

Sirius squirmed against his bonds, and Dumbledore summoned the crumpled piece of paper. He stared at it for a long second. "Go on."

"I-- I slipped out when the dementors brought food. Dementors can't see, and they're confused by the emotions of a dog."

"Your Animagus form." Sirius wondered if Dumbledore was mocking him.

"Yes."

"Continue."

"I traveled as a dog to the Forbidden Forest. The caption on that photograph-- it says the children attend Hogwarts. And I knew Harry would be here as well. And I had to get to Wormtail-- that was our nickname for Pettigrew, in rat form-- before he did anything to hurt Harry." It was more easily explained, but sounded more ridiculous, the second time around. Sirius looked pleadingly at the old wizard.

"How did you manage to spend twelve years in Azkaban without going mad?"

"I-- I-- I knew I was innocent. I wasn't happy to be innocent, and the dementors didn't want the thought, but as long as I was innocent and knew I was innocent, I knew who I was and what I could do. Dementors don't bother a dog much. That's my guess. I don't really know."

Dumbledore nodded. "I'm going to release you from the bonds. I trust you won't attack me?"

"No, Sir."

"Good." The bonds were removed and Sirius gingerly tried out his arms and legs. They worked. "Now, I would like a demonstration of your Animagus abilities, please." Sirius obeyed. "Fascinating. Resume your usual form." Sirius did as he was asked. "I very much want to hear more about how you managed this under my nose, but your time is running short and Remus has all the time in the world to give me details. Remus knows all about it, I assume?"

"Yes," Sirius agreed, and then rushed on. "But it wasn't his idea. He didn't want us breaking laws, and he didn't know anything about what I did this year, I didn't even know he was here. Snape was threatening him with a Dementor's Kiss, but none of this is his fault. You don't have to believe my story, but--"

"Oh, I believe you."

The room spun around Sirius. "You do?"

"Yes. But I have no control over the Ministry, and the fact remains that you have not behaved as if you were blameless."

"No." Sirius' last hope drained away. "But Remus--"

"I will see that no innocents are punished." Sirius breathed a sigh of relief. Remus was all right. Harry was all right. "I must leave you now."

"Thank you, Sir," said Sirius. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"The Fat Lady will be glad to hear it," Dumbledore called over his shoulder as he relocked the door. Sirius sank back into his chair to await his death.

A sharp rap sounded on the window before he could sink into a last reverie, however. He looked up and felt his jaw drop as he saw, of all things, Harry and Hermione astride a hippogriff. He leapt up and tried to force the window open-- _locked, no wand!_

"Stand back!" called Hermione. "Alohomora!" The window opened. Hadn't Remus said something about Hermione being among the smartest in the school?

"How-- how--"

"Get on! There's not much time," Harry commanded. "You've got to get out of here. The dementors are coming. Macnair's gone to get them." As if in a dream, Sirius climbed through the window-- he had performed a similar stunt with a broom many times in his youth-- and flung himself onto the beast behind Hermione. "Okay, Buckbeak, up!" Up to the tower-- come on!" Among his other talents, it seemed that Harry was a skilled handler of hippogriffs. Hermione and Harry dismounted almost before the beast had landed. "Sirius, you'd better go, quick. They'll reach Flitwick's office any moment, they'll find out you're gone."

Sirius slid further forward on Buckbeak. "What happened to the other boy? Ron?" With a sinking feeling, Sirius realized that it was probably most rare to see Harry and Hermione without Ron.

"He's going to be okay," Harry answered urgently. "He's still out of it, but Madam Pomfrey says she'll be able to make him better. Quick-- go--"

_He's spoken to me once. Once. And here he is, risking everything, doing the impossible, when he knows that his parents-- _"How can I ever thank--"

"GO!" Harry and Hermione shouted together.

_His father's son. Oh, his father's son._ "We'll see each other again," Sirius promised. "You are truly your father's son, Harry." He forced the hippogriff into the air, and did not look back to see if Harry was as infuriated by Sirius' last remark about his James as he had been by the first.

The hippogriff was well cared-for and exceedingly powerful, and as they flew through the cool air to freedom, Sirius felt himself relax. _Pettigrew is exposed, if not punished. Dumbledore knows what to look for. Harry forgives me. Remus forgives me. I can-- I can write to them even if I can't see them right away. Harry has friends and I know their names. Ron. Hermione. They're wonderful. _The cure for the disconnected thoughts and the constant emotional flickering had been exceedingly simple: a group meeting in the old Shrieking Shack. _Cured. I'm cured. I must have been mad, because now I'm cured._

Flying at night was wonderful. He'd forgotten how wonderful.

It occurred to Sirius that he needed to write Remus quickly. Remus' judgment had never been at its best on the morning after a transformation when he was just too tired to think clearly. Oh, Remus could think clearly enough about important matters and Sirius trusted his friend with his life on any day of the year, but Remus' self-esteem seemed to take a hit in the hours after wolf became man. While he was confident as usual in a professional sort of way, his sense of self was sent reeling by the undeniably degrading experience of becoming a monster in the most painful possible manner.

And it would be just like Remus to decide that he was entirely at fault for any danger in which Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been placed. Once this decision was made, he would leave Hogwarts and it would be difficult for Sirius to track him down.

Sirius had no intention of falling out of contact with Remus again if he could possibly avoid it.

He pulled the pen and a scrap of parchment from the depths of his ragged robe and balanced them against the neck of the hippogriff. _Please excuse my penmanship_, he thought wryly. _Not only am I using a Muggle writing contraption, but I'm writing on the back of a flying hippogriff._

He put pen to parchment. _Dear_. And he froze. Dear who? _His name is Remus, you unbelievable idiot! _a familiar and almost comforting sarcastic voice screamed from inside his head.

It was the more insidious voice, the voice that sound less like himself and almost like the Minister of Magic, that bothered him. _What makes you think he wants anything to do with you? You accused him of the most horrible crime you could contemplate, and you may have just lost him an awful lot._

"He's my friend. He said he was my friend. He hugged me," Sirius said aloud, hoping that the sound would calm him down. "And he didn't hug me because I look so huggable in my current state." He glanced at his robes with something akin to rue. Was it his imagination, or was he so filthy that the hippogriff's wings were beating dust from his body? "And he didn't hug me because he hugs everyone. He hardly touches anyone. At least he didn't used to." It had taken the better part of their first year at school for Remus to stop flinching when he was touched unexpectedly.

"Remus wants me to write to him," he continued, addressing himself to Buckbeak so that he would sound almost like a normal wizard riding a stolen mystical beast through the night. "And I'm going to do it." He drew a deep breath. _Calm down! A lot has happened and you're just excited. Don't do anything rash. Calm down._ Once he began, he found that he was able to write quickly.

_Dear Remus,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. In fact, I hope this letter finds you at all. I am writing from a location which must remain undisclosed for obvious reasons, but I am writing soon after leaving you in the hopes that even a stupid owl will be able to find you. I hope that you have not done something ridiculous such as resign from Hogwarts over the events of a few hours past. I know that when we were students, you were always pre-occupied with the possibility of harming someone, and I suppose that recent activities qualify as another "close call." But I feel the need to remind you, hopefully without sounding condescending, that you are very much unlikely to run into an old friend you had thought dead for twelve years as well as a fugitive as well as dementors as well as a psychotic Snape (he hasn't changed, has he?) on the night of a full moon twice in a lifetime. I am certain that you are the finest Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Harry and his friends have ever had. They deserve you._

_(You do teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, don't you? I was somewhat distracted by my desire to murder Pettigrew, my attempts to escape the Dementor's Kiss, and the fact that Harry looks JUST LIKE HIS FATHER to pay a great deal of attention. No comments about how much attention I paid when I was in school, please. Even if I hadn't been distracted, though, I probably would have been busy laughing at the concept of Harry and his classmates calling you "Sir" and "Professor." You must admit that it's at least slightly amusing.)_

He halted suddenly as Buckbeak gave a mid-air jump. "All right, Buckbeak?" he asked. The hippogriff huffed indignantly and changed course sharply. Through the darkness, Sirius saw why. A Bludger-sized mound of feathers had had the gall to interfere with the beast's course. Sirius reached out and scooped the owl up with a claw-like hand. It did not have a letter tied to its leg, and while it looked slightly dazed, it appeared to be unhurt. "Can you carry a letter to Hogwarts for me?" he asked, hoping that his Animagus charms would convince the bird to do his bidding. The owl seemed to agree, and Sirius wrapped it in a fold of his robe as he hastily finished his task.

_I also want to apologize for any trouble to which I may have led you and for any injuries I may have given you during our last exchange. And I want to thank you for your part in saving my soul. Yes, it has taken me most of a piece of parchment to get around to thanking you. You see that the years have not improved my manners any more than they have improved my attention span. My thanks are no less sincere for their lateness, however. Thank you for listening to me and thank you for understanding me and thank you for being willing to deal with Pettigrew and thank you for having/sharing the trust of Harry and his friends and thank you for being perceptive enough to know what would happen and thank you for taking the risk of being seen with a fugitive and thank you for coming outside even on the night of the full moon. Thank you. I am deeply in your debt and I owe you my life, such as it is._

_If you would like to write back to me, do it by return owl so this dim-witted bird is able to return to me. I will not write back right away; I need to message Harry first. If you do want to reply, will you tell me about Harry? Anything? Is his friend Ron all right?_

_Sirius_

The letter was formal in places, but that was probably good. He could not jump into the letter mid-conversation as he had in younger years.

Detaching the owl from his robes, he sent it off toward Hogwarts and once again leaned low over the neck of Buckbeak. Hours passed, and as the light grew stronger, Sirius began to ease his mount downwards toward a patch of trees. "We can't let ourselves be seen in the daylight. We're very conspicuous, and half the world is looking for us right now," he explained. Buckbeak seemed to understand, and he thudded to an awkward halt in the grove. Sirius dismounted stiffly. "You stay close," he ordered the hippogriff, which had begun to nose about the ground. "There might be Muggles around."

As he settled into the shadows to begin the long wait for dusk, the quiet double-beat of an owl's wings sounded in his ears. Hoping against hope, he looked up. It was indeed the same owl he had appropriated hours before. Hastily, hardly remembering to thank the bird, he tore the letter from its leg. It felt heavy, so it probably said more than "go away, Sirius." He was thrilled but nervous as he began to read, scanning the letter for any harsh words before reading it more completely.

_Dear Padfoot,_

_You are not in my debt. You owe me nothing. Let's dispense with that theory right away. I did nothing of consequence last night. If I were as perceptive and able to hear people out as you say, I would have known that you could never have been the spy. Besides, magical debts are most often binding when they connect enemies. You are not now and shall never be my enemy. We do not need to keep track of who has done what for whom; this is not a Quidditch match. (We would of course be keeping track if you weren't so far ahead of me in the department of going out of one's way for a friend, but you are and we're not. You understand.)_

_Yes, I taught Defense Against the Dark Arts and I will grant you that it was a bit odd to be referred to as Professor. It was a wonderful experience nonetheless. The students-- most of them-- are friendly and eager to learn and a joy to be around. Classes are much smaller than they were when we were here for obvious reasons, although there is a baby boom beginning with the class that just finished its first year. Do you remember the Rally of Light Dumbledore held when Harry was a baby? He said that Harry's class might be as much as half Muggle-born. He was right; not quite half, but over a third, of Harry's classmates come from Muggle families. And you are correct. I did resign the position this morning. It is too dangerous for me to be around the students. I'm little better for them than dementors, and I could never under any circumstances take the risk of subjecting one of them to the werewolf curse. The damage would be life-changing and irreparable._

_In any case, the choice was not mine to make. This morning, Severus "accidentally" revealed to his students that I am a werewolf. Did we mention last night that he is not only a professor but the Head of Slytherin House? I would have been removed by popular demand of the students' parents had I not resigned first. Dumbledore had to work very hard to convince the board and the staff that I was safe at the beginning of the year, and as he has now been proven wrong, there is very little chance that they would ever consider allowing me to remain here. _

_I am not whining. I have no right to whine, especially when I consider your situation. It is disappointing for me, but I can only be grateful for the year I spent here. In some ways, Hogwarts is even more magical to an adult than to the students. (And professors are allowed into the restricted section of the library without a note.) I am glad to have seen you again. And of course, there was Harry._

_I don't know what to say about Harry. The easy way to begin is that he is very like James. He's not as much of a trouble-maker; he claims that trouble finds him all by itself, and I'm under the impression that he's telling the truth. He does not have much ability to lie and is not terribly subtle. "I like butterbeer! Not that I've been sneaking into Hogsmeade to taste it." He's a bit shy and not prone to drawing attention to himself by pulling pranks or speaking out in class. Slightly insecure. Tends to be embarrassed by the attention some of the younger students pay him. More comfortable with his best friends than in a crowd. Other than that, he is, as I said, like James. More considerate, I think, than James was at thirteen. More careful of the feelings of people around him. He's clever and always asks the difficult questions. He's endlessly loyal to Ron and Hermione, as I'm sure that you noticed. He's very protective of them and is as a rule more concerned for them than for himself. He loves Quidditch. (Isn't it disconcerting to watch him play? That's when he looks most like James.) _

_When you write Harry, may I suggest giving him permission to go to Hogsmeade on the weekends next year? His aunt and uncle refused to sign the form, and the faculty was delighted to enforce the rule in order to keep him away from you. He did, as I mentioned, sneak out. He had the Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map, so I suppose that was to be expected. The last time he did it, I had to play the "dead parents" card. It felt terrible but it worked. (Severus got his hands on the Marauder's Map during this incident and when he tried to make it reveal itself, Mr. Padfoot "registered his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor." We must have done a very good job with that charm. You should have seen your face when you found out about his professorship last night. Astonishment, indeed!)_

_Madam Pomfrey says Ron will be fine. He is still sleeping as far as I know, but he has been completely healed. The only harm done was to his ego; the revelation that your pet rat is an Animagus must be rather a lot to swallow. Harry and Hermione are fine as well. I suppose it's telling that you did not ask about them. Would I get an answer if I asked how in the name of Merlin you escaped? Dumbledore was speaking in riddles when I resigned this morning. I know that you were taken into custody because Dumbledore had to convince the Ministry that I had nothing to do with your escape (I wish I had) as well as that I did not go out to the Shrieking Shack with the intention of helping you._

_I will end this letter now, as requested, so that the owl will be able to find you. To find me when you have another chance to write, I suggest either a smart owl or asking Dumbledore. I will see that he knows._

_Please take care of yourself and don't do anything stupid._

_Remus_

Sirius became Padfoot, but nonetheless he re-read the letter sporadically throughout the day as he listened for signs of human presence and looked for anything that might possibly be edible. The following few days passed similarly. He rarely slept; the Forbidden Forest had afforded him some protection that no other place in the world could provide. There were a few powerfully magical wildlife reserves and conservation areas, but he did not know their secrets as he knew the secrets of the Forbidden Forest. "I suppose I could learn," he told Buckbeak when they had nearly reached the Southern coast of England.

That night, they were lucky enough to pass near a wizarding enclave. Sirius left Buckbeak near the small community's edge and slipped, in dog form, down the town's one street. In one yard, the remains of a picnic lay abandoned next to a plethora of empty bottles of butterbeer and stronger. Ravenously, he devoured the scraps of food before seeing if the family had felt the need to dispose of ink, quills, or parchment in the recent past. They had not, but their neighbors had.

Padfoot bared his teeth in delight. He needed to contact Harry before the term let out; there was no telling whether his aunt, uncle, and cousin approved of owl post. Lily had always reported that Petunia was averse to all things magical.

Now he only needed to find an owl to borrow. There was a slim chance of catching a wild one, and an even slimmer chance of coming up with the means to purchase one. "Appear, owl!" he commanded. In his canine form, his command sounded like a soft bark. That was of little importance, as he had not expected an owl to appear in any case.

A squawking, fluttering noise interrupted his thoughts. "Who do you belong to?" he did his best to inquire with universal animal body language.

With screeches that Padfoot was certain would awaken the sleepy town, the owl explained that he belonged to no one, that he had been hatched and the family had not wanted to keep him, that he had tumbled from a window on the day he was to be brought to the marketplace. Padfoot eyed the owl. He was tiny, and his brain must have been even more so. His wings flapped madly and he never stopped moving as he swarmed about Padfoot's head. Padfoot felt a deep appreciation for Buckbeak, who had managed not to maul the bird that had delivered Remus' letter so many days ago.

Pulling parchment and ink carefully into his mouth, Padfoot nodded at the owl and then at the quill. Hooting eagerly, the owl grabbed the quill in its beak and proceeded to drop it at least six times as he followed the dog from the town.

Reunited with Buckbeak, Padfoot changed his form once more. "Would you like to work for me?" he asked the owl. The owl bobbed up and down enthusiastically. "Fly beside me," he ordered. "Up, Buckbeak."

For the rest of the journey, as the owl flew happily and Buckbeak flew resignedly, Sirius internally composed his letter to Harry. He had to make himself sound like someone Harry could trust. Like someone he would like, but someone who should be taken seriously. He had to sound godfatherly without forcing anything on his godson.

They stopped their travel earlier than was their wont because the next leg of the voyage would involve traveling to mainland Europe, and they could not risk failing to finish before the sun was high in the sky. Sirius settled down to write.

_Dear Harry,_

_I hope this finds you before you reach your aunt and uncle. I don't know whether they're used to owl post._

_Buckbeak and I are in hiding. I won't tell you where in case this owl falls into the wrong hands. I have some doubt about his reliability, but he is the best I could find, and he did seem eager for the job._

_I believe the dementors are still searching for me, but they haven't a hope of finding me here. I am planning to allow some Muggles to glimpse me soon, a long way from Hogwarts, so that the security on the castle will be lifted._

_There is something I never got around to telling you during our brief meeting. It was I who sent you the Firebolt. Crookshanks took the order to the Owl Office for me. I used your name but told them to take the gold from my own Gringotts vault. Please consider it as thirteen birthdays' worth of presents from your godfather. _

_I would also like to apologize for the fright I think I gave you that night last year when you left your uncle's house. I had only hoped to get a glimpse of you before starting my journey north, but I think the sight of me alarmed you._

_I am enclosing something else for you, which I think will make your next year at Hogwarts more enjoyable. _

_If you ever need me, send word. Your owl will find me._

_I'll write again soon. _

_Sirius_

_P. S. I thought your friend Ron might like to keep this owl, as it's my fault he no longer has a rat._

When he had finished his letter was uninteresting but hopefully reassuring. "It doesn't matter that it isn't interesting," he told the owl as he tied it to the parchment. "I'm an escaped convict. That's interesting enough. And I might have stretched the truth about how safe I am, but it will be true soon. The dementors will never get into a reserve outside the United Kingdom." He held the owl in his hand before letting it go. "Now, I owe a great deal to the boy I'm sending you to meet. His name is Harry Potter. He's almost fourteen years old. He's a student at Hogwarts School and he'll probably be on the Hogwarts Express by the time you get that far north. All right?" The owl hooted with a confidence that Sirius did not share.

"I'm going to give you as a gift to another boy, a friend of Harry's. I owe him a great deal as well. The last time I saw him, I broke his leg and … was the cause of his pet's running away. I want you to be a good pet for him. Understand?"

The owl hooted again and vanished to the north.

Sirius strained his eyes, hoping to catch a last glimpse of the bird, but he did not. Sighing, he transformed once more into Padfoot and set out looking for Muggles. It would not do not to keep his word to Harry, especially as Harry had saved his soul. _I ought to be helping him, not the other way around_, he growled to himself as he trotted along.

The task of finding someone to frighten was startlingly simple, and it gave Sirius a warm feeling of confidence that perhaps he had not lost his trouble-making touch. His name and photograph must have been in the Muggles papers over the past week as he had once more evaded custody. The three young women pointed and screamed, but before they could draw much attention, he was off, around a corner, and in his canine form.

The remainder of his journey was almost relaxing. He was far from Hogwarts and Azkaban and dementors, and in Buckbeak he had a living thing that did not flinch at the sight of him.

The tropical climate of the reserve was welcome, and the wildlife provided meals for both Sirius and Buckbeak. They did their best not to devour any protected species, although Sirius could not say for certain what sorts of animals had been placed on the endangered lists over the past thirteen years. To some degree, he was even able to clean himself in the river that flowed through the reserve although he harbored no illusions about his appearance.

When he and Buckbeak were recovered from the hard weeks of traveling, Sirius began his quest for parchment. Parchment had become the great desire of his life; it was more important than anything but food. _The great joy of my life: writing letters. It's not the same as Quidditch, but I'll admit that there's a lot to be said for it._ He smiled, and his face seemed stiff as it adjusted to the odd expression.

The witches and wizards who lived near the reserve to keep the grounds and tend to any wounded animals seldom bothered to lock their windows and doors, but Sirius trained a parrot to steal his writing supplies rather than go after them himself. The training passed enjoyably; magical parrots were quite intelligent and would long ago have made owls obsolete had they not been so expensive and conspicuous.

He had already memorized Remus' letter and did not need to drag it from the safe folds of his robes to reply.

_Dear Professor Moony, Sir,_

_I know that you said I should use a smart owl to find you, but how do you feel about a smart parrot? I like this one. He speaks more English than your average Slytherin Quidditch player. And you wouldn't think that colors like these would occur outside a potion gone wrong._

_Thank you for the suggestion about Hogsmeade form. It's just like Dumbledore to accept the signature of a fugitive who has only once spoken to his godson as valid permission. And thank you for your part in my escape. You did play a part, Moony. If Harry had not been able to conjure a Patronus, we would all have lost our souls on Hogwarts grounds. No one but you would have managed to teach a thirteen-year-old that kind of magic. No one but you would have tried._

_Harry and Hermione flew a purloined Hippogriff by the name of Buckbeak to the room where I was being held and unlocked the window. That is the short version of my escape. I would give you the long version if I knew it, but Harry and Hermione refused to explain anything to me. They were under the impression that because I was moments away from receiving the Dementor's Kiss and the castle was full of Ministry types and schoolboy rivals, I should not ask what was going on. Harry is truly is father's son, and I see wgy he chose Ron and Hermione as his friends._

_If I hadn't sworn off murderous grudges for Harry's sake, I would be plotting Snape's demise as you read. "Accidentally" revealing that you are-- I could kill the man, I honestly could. It took him twenty years, but he finally had you thrown out of Hogwarts, and never mind the effect it had on the students. Why does Dumbledore let him stay there? Does he have any ability to teach at all? I can't imagine that he does. Has he taken up washing his hair yet? Never mind, I don't want to know. I should not be wasting my ink on him. Never was anyone worth less. Do stop calling him Severus, by the way. It makes you sound like old friends._

_I did not think you were whining in your last letter. I wanted to know what happened and you told me. If you do feel like whining, go ahead. You have every right. You were treated unfairly, and I take it that you have been treated unfairly all the while that we have been apart. In many ways, these past almost-thirteen years must have been harder on you than on me. You lost almost everyone you cared about in one fell swoop, and when the war was over you would have been forced out of proper wizarding society. Moving every time you were discovered at exactly the time that you barely had enough energy to begin with and never holding steady employment . . . it must have been terrible. One thing about prison is the promise of food and shelter. Besides, I knew the truth. I did not have to waste any effort mourning the rat, as I'm sure you did. And as for James and Lily, their deaths can be placed squarely on my head, and knowing this, I also knew I was deserving of my guilt and grief. You were an innocent victim. I hate the thought of what you must have gone through. If I had any means at my disposal, I would try to make it up to you. I know that I never can "make it up to you," of course, but something would be better than nothing. Not that I would know what to do if I were Dumbledore himself. I was almost surprised when you wrote to me. I would not blame you for hating me. I'm not crazy about me._

_I am considering resenting the last line of your letter. I mean it. "Don't do anything stupid?" As if I ever would. To whom do you think you're writing, Professor? _

_Padfoot_

He messaged his belated thanks to Dumbledore as well, and eagerly awaited a response from one of his three correspondents.

The three letters arrived on the same day and that gift pleased him more than any he had received on Christmas or a birthday as a child.

Hedwig, Harry's owl, came first. Her snow-white feathers looked out of place amidst the sweltering jungle.

_Dear Sirius,_

_Thank you for your letter and for permission to go to Hogsmeade. My aunt and uncle would never have signed the form and even though I tried not to be too jealous of Ron and Hermione, it was hard. I don't think I'll spend my time visiting the Shrieking Shack and wondering who haunts it, though. And of course, thank you for the Firebolt! It is the best present anyone has ever given me. I love Quidditch and as you know, I really needed a broom when this one arrived. Most of the owl-orders were recommending the Nimbus 2001, but I couldn't get one of those because that's what the Slytherin team uses._

_Ron says thank you for the owl, as well. He was thrilled when we got the letter on the Hogwarts Express and you said he could keep it. Ron was fine the day after you left, by the way. Madam Pomfrey can fix almost anything. We're just sorry that Wormtail got away so that you have to hide. We're also sorry that Professor Lupin resigned. He was the best Defense Against the Dark Arts professor we ever had. He might have been the best professor we ever had at all. Everyone in the school except the Slytherins was miserable when word got around that he was leaving. Some people even had their parents write letters to Dumbledore in support of him. I tried to talk him into staying but he said no. _

_Things are all right here. The Dursleys don't like magic very much, but the summer isn't that long. My cousin Dudley is on a diet. It's about thirteen years too late, but Aunt Petunia would never admit that he needed one until his school (Smeltings) said that they couldn't make a uniform big enough for him. He throws a tantrum every day that makes the whole house shake. _

_Thank you again for everything. I hope you are enjoying yourself at least a little bit._

_Harry_

The letter was just a step above impersonal, but Sirius cherished every word. It was a pleasure to know that Harry flourished the "y" when he signed his name and that he refused to ride a broom approved by Slytherin House.

Hedwig looked at Sirius as if waiting for instruction. Sirius waved her off. "Go ahead. I'll send the reply with one of the native birds." Hedwig gave a disdainful hoot and left, but Sirius thought that Harry might enjoy seeing a tropical bird outside his window.

Almost as soon as Hedwig had left, two more owls swooped downward. One was clearly a Hogwarts owl, and one was a more nondescript post owl. Sirius reached for the Hogwarts owl first. It ruffled its feathers importantly and took off after Hedwig.

_Dear Sirius,_

_I am delighted to know that you and your companion are safe and sound. Hagrid is still celebrating Buckbeak's freedom and those of us who are aware of certain facts are still celebrating yours. _

_Do let me know if there is anything I can do to help you. As you know, there is little chance that you will be proven innocent until we can find Wormtail. Again, I congratulate you and James for achieving such a feat as you did during your time as students here. Remus has given me the details that you did not. As you may already know, he has left Hogwarts. The loss is ours and we all wish he would have done differently. He greatly entertained his students with tales of boggarts and beautiful vampires. _

_I would like to ask one favor of you before I close. You seem to be in the process of developing a close relationship with your godson. Sometimes he is reluctant to confide important information to me; should he tell you something with bearing upon his safety or a potential power gain by Lord Voldemort, please let me know._

_Sincerely,_

_A. D. _

Finally, Sirius reached for the last letter. His excitement reached a fever pitch at the mere sight of Remus' handwriting, although he knew that the letter was likely to be filled with news he would not want to read.

_Dear Sirius,_

_I most certainly do not hate you and I hope that you were only being melodramatic when you said that you did not especially like yourself. Receiving a letter from you is always the highlight of my week. THIS IS NOT BECAUSE THE REST OF MY WEEK IS AWFUL BY COMPARAISON. I am FINE. I am HAPPY. The last thing in the world that you ought to be doing is concerning yourself about me._

_For one of the brightest students who has ever passed through Hogwarts, you manage to come up with some galactically stupid ideas. One is that Lily and James' deaths are on your head. Voldemort killed them. Wormtail betrayed them. You did not. You were a victim-- more so than I was. This brings us to another of your inane suggestions: that my life over the past decade was in any way comparable to yours. It was not entirely pleasant, but I have never heard of a life that was. _

_My friends were taken from me and I was sad. I would not have been human if that had not been so. (All right, I'm not human, but you know what I mean.) I grieved for them, James and Lily and Peter, and for you, too. I was sad for Harry and I was sad for myself because I had lost all of you. But I was not placed in a time warp by the dementors. I did not relive the worst experiences of my life over and over again for twelve years. I met interesting people and saw interesting things even if my life was not idyllic. And I reached a state of mind where I could only be grateful that I knew James and Lily. It was an incredible stroke of luck and an unbelievable blessing to have had them in my life for any amount of time at all. You remembered your worst experiences with them, and I remembered my best. I hope that you can give me enough credit to accept that I have not remained miserable during every day that has past since that Halloween. I had bad days, of course, and spending time at Hogwarts was a wild emotional ride. I remembered so many things I'd not known I'd forgotten, and I can't say that I was eager to come face-to-face with you._

_I never could wrap my mind around the idea that you'd been the spy. I believed it because I thought the evidence incontrovertible. Nonetheless, it never made sense. And I did my best to write off "betrayal by Secret-Keeper" as something I would never be able to understand while I focused on other things._

_Now I know that I was wrong to believe you guilty, and for that I am sorry. I was not harmed by lack of information but protected by it. If I had known that you were being subjected to Azkaban while the traitor went free, I don't know what I would have done. Tried to help you and gotten killed in the process, I expect. But I did not know until after the fact. The thought of you being cold and alone and dirty and bored for so many years on end makes me sick, Sirius. _

_That's enough of that. About Snape-- I have no idea why Dumbledore trusts him. I don't doubt that he has a reason, but your guess is as good as mine as to what it might be. His hair looks the same as it always did. (Snape's, that is. Well, Dumbledore's, too.) He may be a good teacher to the Slytherins, but he habitually reduces the other students-- especially the Gryffindors-- to tears. _

_I even had one student in Gryffindor (Neville Longbottom, Frank's son) who saw Snape in a boggart. Boggart-Snape cross-dressing ensued. Everyone in the school, except for one person, thought this hilarious._

_Please take care of yourself and don't do anything stupid._

_Moony_

Sirius dropped the precious letter on the ground as a fit of laughter seized him. Severus Snape, cross-dressing! He tried not to imagine it too clearly. Instead, he did his best to picture the expression on Snape's face when he heard what had happened. Still laughing, he stretched himself out carelessly on the ground, temporarily forgetting that he ought not make so much noise, particularly in broad daylight. Moony had always had such a wonderful sense of humor; he had surely given Neville a nudge in the cross-dressing direction during that lesson.

Suddenly, Sirius heard his gales of laughter turn into sobs and realized belatedly that he was not so much breathing as choking and gasping. _STOP IT!_ he reprimanded himself harshly. _YOU'RE OUT OF AZKABAN AND HARRY KNOWS THE TRUTH AND DUMBLEDORE AND MOONY AND YOU'RE FINE NOW SO STOP CRYING!_ He wasn't especially ashamed of the tears; he had heard a great deal of sobbing in Azkaban, and even before. The Dark Lord's reign of terror had caused many fine wizards and witches to cry. But he knew that making so much noise, even in a secluded place, could be the cause of his death. Even if he did not attract a human, he might attract a dangerous animal from which he could not defend himself without a wand.

The knowledge that he was placing himself in danger did not stop his sobs from echoing off the trees. _YOU'RE FREE! YOU'RE ALIVE! YOU'RE SANE!_ _Never mind those who aren't._

On the night of a full moon, perhaps a month into his stay in Azkaban, Sirius had regained the slightest bit of awareness. He had then realized that he had the ability to transform into a dog, and had thus been able to simplify his feelings. The more time he had spent in his canine form, the stronger his ability to hold a train of thought or control himself had grown. He had stopped yelling, screaming, swearing that he was sorry and begging James to forgive him. He had stopped howling for Pettigrew's blood, although the rat had never been far from his thoughts. The whole of his energy had been focused on control, and so he had rarely lost control. _Rarely_.

_One day, when Sirius had been in Azkaban for more than a year, a commotion drew him to the bars of his cell door. It was odd that he had heard anything unusual; the prisoners were screaming and howling as always. Perhaps he was learning to tune out screaming. Was a new prisoner arriving? Or even several? The dementors were certainly agitated._

_With a pop, Sirius became human. He could not allow a wizard or a witch to take note of his alternate form._

"_NO! I DIDN'T DO IT!" The voice was new; Sirius had not heard it before. He leaned against the bars, straining his eyes through the dusty darkness of Azkaban for a better look. The boy was pure white; even his hair was what must have been in sunlight a beautiful shade of blond._

_The dementors were un-moved by the plea as they dragged their prey along. The boy seemed too frightened to look into the cells that lined his path, and so Sirius could not glimpse his face. Still, he could tell that the boy was, in fact, a boy. He was even younger than Sirius himself. He could not have been a day over the age of nineteen, and his fright made Sirius feel very, very old at twenty-two. No longer was Sirius "the pretty boy barely out of his teens" who was not expected to last a week in Azkaban after the crimes for which he had been committed. "NO! I didn't do it!"_

_A heavyset man was next. His dull gaze was fixed on the ground as he moved along without fighting the dementors. Sirius imagined that he had looked much the same when he had first entered Azkaban. He had been thought already mad, and had behaved docilely, as this man did now._

_Next was a thinner man, and Sirius was so startled upon recognizing him that he let out a gasp. The man's head turned, and though he looked worn and fearful, he met Sirius' gaze. "I always said I'd see you in hell, Black," he said._

_Sirius let go of the bars and stepped backwards into a low, sarcastic bow. "Welcome, Lestrange. I hope you enjoy your stay. Did you bring along your lovely wife?"_

"_I am proud to come to Azkaban for my Lord," a clear, female voice answered. The dementors may as well have been escorting her to a Yule Ball; it seemed that they hung on her arms rather than restrained her._

"_Your Lord is gone!" Sirius informed her._

"_He shall rise again." Her supreme confidence might have sent chills down his spine had he not been in a state of permanent coldness. "It does not matter what your little friend's little boy did. My Lord will return." She was placed in a cell almost directly across from Sirius' own. Sirius could not see her, but he could hear her clearly. "Pity your friend Jimmy shan't."_

_Sirius clenched his teeth. No one had ever called James "Jimmy" unless he or she wanted to be hexed. James had regarded his name as something of a cross to bear until he decided that he liked how Lily said it. _

_The dementor that had just closed the door of Mrs. Lestrange's cell sensed Sirius' pale bittersweet melancholy at his memory of the beginning of James and Lily's romance. It lunged toward Sirius, and Sirius fell to his knees rather more quickly than he would have liked to admit. James' voice rang in his ear. "You killed me! You killed Lily! Killed us! Killed us!"_

_Panting, Sirius transformed. His new prisonmate called out to him several more times before turning her attention to her husband. Somehow, Padfoot managed to fall asleep curled against the thin, hard slab that was meant to serve as a bed. _

_When he awoke, it was night. He shook himself, wanting to shake off the dream. As a nice change of pace, he had dreamed of Remus being slowly tortured to death as punishment for killing Snape when he, Sirius, had been the one responsible. "MUMMY! I WANT MY MUMMY! I'M SORRY, MUMMY, SAVE ME, SAVE ME! PLEASE, PLEASE, I'M COLD! I'M SCARED. I DIDN'T MEAN IT! MUMMY!"_

"_What's his name?" he asked in the general direction of the Lestranges. They were unlikely to be asleep. New prisoners did not fall asleep in Azkaban; they passed out after being kept awake for a few days or a week._

"_That's Barty Crouch," Mrs. Lestrange offered in her usual controlled voice. "Pathetic, isn't he? Though I'll reckon you were just as bad."_

"_Thanks for your concern."_

_She laughed. Sirius did not remember hearing her laugh previously and it was not a pretty sound. "Oh, you do seem to be doing quite well for having been in here a year."_

"_Again, thank you." It seemed odd that she was striking up a conversation with him. They had never been friends; quite the contrary. Somehow, though, he was not surprised that the dementors were not affecting her. She was a true believer in her cause, and she obviously felt Azkaban a worthy alternative to ruling the world by Voldemort's side._

_Sirius was still reeling from the revelation that the pale boy had been Barty Crouch-- presumably the son of the Barty Crouch who had sent him here: You scum. You filth. You don't deserve a trial. A waste of time in any case._

"_Aren't you going to ask what I'm in for? I'd ask you, but I already know. Poor Jimmy and-- was it Lilypad? Lilyliver? Liliputian? Betrayed by their dear Sirius."_

"_I never betrayed them," said Sirius, furious that his voice was shaking and hers was not. _

"_Of course not. It would be to insult myself to suggest that you were on my side. Now be the chivalrous gentleman we all know you used to like to pretend you were and ask me what I'm in for. And maybe I'll be kind enough to answer your later questions. You got Crouch's name for free."_

_Sirius rolled his eyes. "Very well. What did they catch you doing?"_

"_You remember Frank Longbottom? He tried and failed to train you into something that might actually have been a thorn in our side?"_

"_What about him?"_

"_He'll not train anyone else! He wouldn't help us find Our Lord, and so we punished him. CRUCIO!"_

"_CRUCIO!" echoed her husband's voice, and the voice of the heavyset man._

"_Superb, model, Gryffindor, Head Boy, perfect Frank Longbottom a blubbering mess on the floor of his house with his wife twitching beside him and his little brat screaming from across the room!"_

"_CRUCIO!"_

"_CRUCIO!"_

"_If we were going to come here, that was the way to do it!"_

"_Almost worth it."_

"_He begged!"_

"_He groveled!"_

"_Pleaded!"_

_There was great pride in the three voices. Sirius began to feel ill, even by Azkaban standards. He had forced himself to eat, as he often did, because he had a vague plan of living long enough to escape and tell the world-- or at least James' son-- the truth. Now he was sorry he had eaten as his stomach wrenched._

"_Cried!" The new prisoners were still bragging. _

"_Howled!"_

"_Lost his voice screaming!"_

"_That's your role model, Black!"_

"_That's your mentor!"_

"_And you know why we did it? Other than to find Our Lord?"_

"_Do you?"_

"_Want to know?"_

"_Of course he does!"_

"_We did it because in our first year the big-shot Head Boy thought he'd take points because we caught little Pettigrew and stuck him the ceiling of the Great Hall. I told him one day he'd pay, and now he has."_

"_PETTIGREW!" howled one of the older prisoners._

"_We never should have trusted something that weak," Lestrange said scornfully. "But he will pay!"_

"_When Our Lord returns!"_

"_At least he took the Potters with him when he died." _

_Sirius was lucid enough to know simple bullying when he heard it. He was powerless, though, and did not respond. _

"_Suppose Jimmy cried like Longbottom when he died?"_

"_No, no, don't kill me! Kill my wife and baby, but let me live!" Lestrange could do a cruel imitation of James' voice._

"_Don't hurt me! Please! Please!"_

"_I wonder if Black will come to save me!"_

"_No, no, I'll have to die slowly and all alone!"_

"_Slowly and painfully, failed by my friends!"_

_In spite of himself, Sirius felt tears spring to his eyes. He drew in a shaky breath and transformed, trying to stretch his tail to cover his ears. The impromptu theater performance looked set to continue a while longer; the new prisoners were strong because they had all come in together. Mrs. Lestrange in particular believed herself to have done no wrong, and so the dementors were not affecting her terribly. Besides, the inhuman guardians were focused on the weak boy further along the corridor. Sirius wondered if the boy was dying already. The dementors seemed very excited._

_No, the dementors were excited by the Lestranges. They drew nearer, and soon the men's voices became moans. Even the woman quieted slightly. _

_It did not matter. The images of James dying had never been far from Sirius' eyelids, and now they were added to the new images of Frank, slowly succumbing to the Cruciatus Curse as the son he so loved watched._

"_MUMMY!" Young Crouch had never ceased his shrieking. Sirius had never been one to seek the protection of those stronger than he. He detested those who did. But now, he almost wished, like young Crouch, that someone would come and save him._

_No one came._

_He was glad that dogs could not cry. _

Humans, of course, _could_ cry, and Sirius' tears did not slow. He dragged himself to his feet, knowing that he should not be lying on the ground in such an exposed position, but once on his feet he did not know what to do. He took a single halting step only to find that his long, matted hair had become entangled with a vine that had been growing up the trunk of a tree. Infuriated, he ripped the hair free, tearing it as he did so.

And to punish the tree, he punched it. He punched it with his right hand and then with his left, and then with his right again. He kicked the tree, and hit it until blood ran from his knuckles down to his elbows.

It was the tree's fault that James was dead and Lily was dead and Frank and his wife had been tortured. Sirius told it so. He even yelled once or twice, not caring that to attract attention meant suicide. He struck his head against the tree's rough trunk.

_I hate you hate you hate you how could you you killed them I killed them Lily and James Lily and James Sirius how could you come along Azkaban for you Azkaban for life so young dead after a year how many years years they didn't get him have to get Wormtail Harry doesn't know hates me orphaned him my fault with his aunt and uncle no magic not happy there because of me not safe from Wormtail went free and Snape why Snape inside the Whomping Willow made Remus a killer going to kill me Harry just a baby how could he live just a baby in the room Crucio Crucio Crucio in front of him no parents like Harry . . . ._

Thoughts and words were incoherent and the streams of blood multiplied.

As in Azkaban, he wanted someone to come and save him.

No one came.

"No one is going to come," he said aloud in a wet but clear voice. "I have to take care of myself. Like Moony said." Who was Sirius to refuse Remus anything? _How could I have suspected him?_ he asked himself for the umpteenth time. He was too tired to wonder about an answer now. Surely, though, Remus would one day ask.

Methodically, he walked to the river and rinsed his hands. He had done himself some damage, and he longed for a wand or at least a healing potion. It would not do to get an infection.

He cupped water in his hands and splashed it on his face. As he did, his fingers once more tangled in his hair. He shook his head ruefully. He had been ignoring his hair and beard, and it now occurred to him that he would be much more comfortable if he rid himself of them. At the rate he was gaining weight, he might even render himself unrecognizable from the escaped convict whose picture had been printed in every journal in the world.

Unfortunately, Sirius had lost his knife in the fiasco at Hogwarts. He allowed his eyes to stray in the direction of the groundskeepers' homes. Everything he needed would be found there. He had not borrowed anything since the parchment, and as he had been a very well-behaved fugitive, he expected that they owed him.

As Padfoot, Sirius approached the small cluster of houses. He cocked his head to listen, wondering if one structure or another might be empty even now. It seemed that the three closest to him were. It would be a risk to rush in without a plan, but not a grave risk. He would almost certainly have time to transform if he was interrupted. Besides, now that he had made a decision, he was eager to act.

Padfoot nosed the door open carefully and looked about the tiny house. It was clearly empty, and would likely remain so until its inhabitant's workday ended. Nonetheless, Sirius lost no time in transforming and seeking out a pair of scissors, another roll of parchment, and the shower. All were found with relative ease, and he stood before the mirror beside the shower within seconds.

"Oh dear," said the mirror. "Are you all right?"

"Getting there," replied Sirius. He raised the scissors to his head and began to cut haphazardly. There was no reason to wash hair he had no plans to keep. The beard followed, although he had to complete that job with a razor. It was odd that the razor was present; most wizards simply cast spells on themselves in lieu of physically shaving. The concept of raking a blade across one's face had always struck Sirius as slightly barbaric, and it was one Muggle custom he had never attempted to adopt.

He cut himself more than once, but when he was done the ridiculous hair was gone and deposited almost neatly on a square of parchment for later disposal. Then, hesitantly, he stepped into the shower. As a Hogwarts student, he had once enchanted the showers in the Quidditch changing rooms to sound a shrill alarm should they be entered by a Slytherin player, and since then he had felt an odd pang of apprehension when he began to wash in a strange place.

His worry was groundless. The shower had been perfectly enchanted, and he raised his hands to his head to begin to remove the filth from his hair. The shampoo refused to foam; perhaps he should have shaved his head as well. His hair seemed to be a lost cause. He nearly shouted with frustration and repeated his actions. At last, his fingers touched foam as they caressed his scalp, and an odd feeling of cool nakedness that he could hardly remember as "clean" began to cross him. Meanwhile, the rivulets of water that tracked down his body left the floor on which he stood blackened.

It took long moments of scraping and rubbing to eliminate even the first level of filth from his body. He had been swimming in the river, but this sort of washing did not produce the same clinically clean results as a real shower with soap.

The water temperature had been perfectly regulated, but suddenly Sirius felt cold. _I wonder if the dirt was keeping me warm_, he thought darkly. "Hotter," he ordered the shower, which complied. He could feel the change, but it was not great enough to chase the new chill from his bones. "Hotter," he repeated, as if to establish that he could be warm, that he could be hot, even after twelve years in Azkaban. "Hotter."

It was not until he took a hard look at his skin that he realized he had scalded himself. He had forgotten that such a thing could happen. "Stop." The water stopped, and Sirius tremblingly wrapped a towel around his body. He did not think it likely that he could clean his robes particularly well without magic, and he was loathe to put the dirty rags back on his body. Instead, he crept through the house, barely mindful that he was dripping, and looked for replacements.

He was pleased to find Muggle clothing in the small bedroom. This would disguise him better than clean robes. "I'm sorry," he said to the unknown owner of the house. "But I need them more than you do." He gathered up his belongings and left the house in dog form before returning to his hiding place.

Once there, he leaned against a tree, his skin still sore where it had been burned, and began to write. He needed to do something at least slightly productive, and he needed to begin by reassuring Remus lest Remus worry that his letter had triggered a memory that sent Sirius down the path to temporary lunacy.

_Dear Moony, _

_I am backing off. All right? You can take care of yourself and you are leading a perfectly wonderful life. However, I refuse to stop concerning myself with you. And my backing off in no way constitutes an admission that I was not at fault for Halloween, 1981. _

_Azkaban is miserable, as everyone knows. But the cold-- it's something you get used to. You adjust. The same with washing. It's more of a problem for people who run into us. And I wasn't so lonely. It took a good long time for the Lestranges to go mad, probably because they were in there together, and for those years it was just like being back in a potions lesson. Don't ever trouble yourself about my time in Azkaban, Moony. Prison is not meant to be pleasant but no permanent damage was done._

_You have no need to be guilty for believing I was the spy. The whole world believed I was the spy. I laid the trap for myself. And to slightly twist the immortal words of arguing childhood friends, I started it._

_Now, on to the important news: HOW COULD YOU HAVE WAITED THIS LONG TO TELL ME ABOUT THE CROSS-DRESSING? Honestly. You need to get your priorities straight. I'm not sure whether I should ask what he was wearing or not. Would it give me a laugh or would it just give me night terrors? Perhaps I should ask about Neville as well-- is he in Harry's class, then? Has he grown up well? I heard a lot of bragging about torturing Frank. Did Frank live? The lengths to which one human being will go to harm another will never cease to amaze me._

_The weather is quite lovely here. The air is clear and the sun is warm, and hopefully no unwelcome reader of our correspondence will be able to pinpoint my location from that description. Please note that I am not enjoying clean air and warm sunlight because I did not get much exposure to them in Azkaban. I would have enjoyed them anyway. They are commonly thought to be good things. And while I know that I'm not common at all, sometimes I like to pretend._

_I received a message from Dumbledore the other day. (We correspond so that I can grovel before him in thanks for all he has done for Harry.) He says that you were an exceptional professor (as does Harry) and that the classes were entertained by your tale of a beautiful vampire. Care to elaborate?_

_Please take care of yourself and try to have a little bit of fun._

_Padfoot_

Sirius decided to respond to Harry as well. He did not want to pressure the boy into accepting him into his life-- but he did want to be accepted, as much for Harry's safety as for his own peace of mind.

_Dear Harry,_

_Thank you for your letter. You and Ron are very welcome; but you were only given your due and there was no real reason to thank me._

_As I recall, your aunt was never especially fond of magic. If it would make things easier for you, please do not hesitate to tell your family that your convict godfather will hunt them down and attack them if they do anything to make you uncomfortable or unhappy. This is not far from the truth, incidentally. I know that I have said this before, but please let me know if you need me._

_I am sorry that Professor Lupin resigned as well, and I do not doubt that he was an excellent teacher. However, convincing him to change his mind once it has been made up is something of a Herculean task._

_As promised, I allowed some Muggles to see me and I am certain that the dementors have been removed from Hogwarts grounds. I sincerely doubt that Dumbledore would have allowed them to remain in any case. _

_I will write again in time for your birthday._

_Sirius_

Sirius smiled. Harry's birthday was at the end of July, and not so far away. Now that he was almost presentable, he wondered if there might exist some way to obtain his godson's present without resorting to theft.

After checking to see that Buckbeak was properly bedded down, Sirius returned to dog form and fell asleep.

The next morning, he began exploring the reserve and its surrounding areas more completely than he had done before when he had been buried by the need for food and letters. The nearest Muggle town was not far away, and within a week he had found some employment as a day laborer. He began to scan the area for Muggle shops and wizarding ones and planning the best way to spend his windfall. Living as he was off the land, he had no real expenses, but he could not risk buying that which he most wanted: a wand.

He was almost surprised when he found that enough time had passed to expect news from his correspondents.

_Dear Sirius,_

_This letter is shaping up to be a depressing one. You picked the wrong questions to ask. Frank and his wife are not dead. They are permanently confined to Saint Mungo's. They have never shown any signs of being aware of the world around them. Neville lives with his grandmother. He is indeed a Gryffindor and one of Harry's roommates. He struggles in classes (except for Herbology) and seems to be convinced that he is almost a squib. The general consensus among the professors is that he is actually suffering from the after-effects of losing his parents the way he did. He is apparently repressing his natural magical talent. He's not naturally powerful the way Harry is, of course, but there is something there that he isn't yet ready to use. He's a very nice boy in any case._

_It was his grandmother's clothing into which Neville forced his boggart Snape: a hat with a vulture, a big red handbag, and the like. I think the news spread from one end of the school to the other in less than ninety seconds. _

_All of Harry's classmates are exceptional in one way or another and I was very impressed with them. (Speaking of Harry's friends, I don't know if you worked out to which branch of Weasleys Ron belongs. His eldest brother Bill attended Hogwarts at the same time as us; he is five years our junior and was a Gryffindor. I think he may have been the victim of one or two of our pranks, but I can't be certain. We tormented a lot of the younger students. There are four brothers in between Bill and Ron and one little girl named Ginny who is helplessly in love with Harry. I'm not certain whether he knows how badly smitten she is, but he has never encouraged her.)_

_The vampire was not particularly beautiful. _

_I am changing locations again. I'm not going far; just to a cottage well outside this town. Dumbledore owns it and has asked me to take care of it. Ordinarily, I would attempt to find a way not to accept this kind of help, but I've seen the place and someone ought to be living in it. It might as well be me. _

_I will send this out now because the moon will be full tonight. _

_Take care of yourself and don't do anything stupid._

_Remus_

Sirius moved on to Harry's letter.

_Dear Sirius,_

_I actually have already taken you up on your offer to help me with the Dursleys. When they met me at the Hogwarts Express last month, I told them about you and that you broke out of wizarding prison. (I might have forgotten to say that you were innocent.) When I told them that you wanted me to be happy, they let me keep my school things in my room instead of locking them away for the summer. Hopefully I will get to visit Ron for the end of the summer, anyway. He says that his father (who works for the Ministry of Magic) might be able to get us tickets to the Quidditch World Cup!_

_Even if we can't go see the World Cup, I will probably visit Ron anyway. Hermione will be there as well, although I think it's technically Ron's sister Ginny who invites Hermione since Hermione has to share her room. And Ron's brothers Fred and George, they're twins, are Beaters on Gryffindor's Quidditch team. So we'll get to play Quidditch even if we don't get to watch it._

_Mostly I've been doing my homework so far this holiday. Was History of Magic boring when you were at Hogwarts, too?_

_I hope you and Buckbeak are doing well._

_Harry_

Sirius knew that Harry's birthday was drawing ever closer, and so he sent a parrot with a packet of Muggle money to a bank with instruction to exchange the Muggle currency for the wizarding sort. Then, he purchased a cake for Harry and a set of robes for himself. He began to feel almost human again with his rhythm of paid physical work, taking care of Buckbeak, hunting, and writing. He still slept only in canine form, and therefore was not subject to the nightmares he was certain he would have had had he attempted to relax completely in his usual shape.

However, odd snatches of news were beginning to reach him. Remus mentioned that Dumbledore had pulled Mad-Eye Moody from the depths of retirement to fill the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Assorted wizarding newspapers mentioned cursed dustbins, Dark Marks, and attacks on Muggles that seemed suspiciously magical. He tried to remind himself that the world had not stopped when his life had been interrupted by Azkaban, and that Lord Voldemort had not been considered a threat for many years, but nonetheless, an odd fretfulness took up permanent residence at the edge of his consciousness.

His anxiety intensified with a letter delivered by Hedwig. Harry had grown more familiar in his correspondence over the summer, and this note was the longest he had yet written. However, one paragraph thrown in with mock-carelessness set Sirius into a fit of trembling:

_A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. Last time that happened, it was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don't reckon he can be anywhere near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt years afterward?_

Sirius groaned inwardly. He doubted that Harry was telling him the entire truth; he must have been in a considerable amount of pain to become frightened enough to write the godfather he barely knew for advice. This must have been what Dumbledore had meant when he had asked Sirius to keep him apprised of the workings of Harry's mind.

He had no right to remain in hiding while his godson was in danger.

He detained Hedwig and scribbled out three hasty notes:

_Harry--_

_I'm flying north immediately. This news about your scar is the latest in a series of strange rumors that have reached me here. If it hurts again, go straight to Dumbledore-- they're saying he's got Mad-Eye out of retirement, which means he's reading the signs, even if no one else is._

_I'll be in touch soon. My best to Ron and Hermione. Keep your eyes open, Harry._

_Sirius_

and

_Professor Dumbledore:_

_Harry tells me that his scar hurt last night. He wanted to know if curse scars sometimes hurt for no reason. I am flying north tonight._

_Sirius Black_

and

_R--_

_Harry's scar hurt. Coming north._

_--S_

He regretfully burned the letters he had received lest he lose them and accidentally incriminate someone during a close call on his journey, and whistled for Buckbeak. There was no time to lose.

"We're about to start a long journey, Buckbeak," he told the hippogriff. "Sorry. But it's for Harry." He bowed low, and the hippogriff returned the gesture, as if in understanding of Sirius' feelings for Harry. Sirius mounted the animal hastily. "Let's go."

They flew almost without a break for nearly a week, and while Sirius dared not mock his beast's endurance, he clenched his fists and wished painfully for a wand and the ability to Apparate.

Hedwig intercepted them just as they entered England. She flew gracefully beside Buckbeak as Sirius scanned the letter.

_Dear Sirius,_

_I reckon I just imagined my scar hurting, I was half asleep when I wrote to you last time. There's no point coming back, everything's fine here. Don't worry about me, my head feels completely normal._

_Harry_

Sirius began to laugh. He had always been prone to laughing at inopportune moments (injuries, funerals, murders), and if Buckbeak had cared to throw his rider from his back, he could easily have done so.

"Remus is right. Your owner is a lousy liar," he chuckled to the bird, which was glaring at him and waiting for him to reply. "All right. I'm answering right now. Don't be impatient. It's not easy to write on a flying hippogriff, although I happen to be the world's leading expert."

He fished quill, ink, and parchment from the small bag in which he carried his few non-descript possessions.

_Nice try, Harry._

_I'm back in the country and well-hidden. I want you to keep me posted on everything that's going on at Hogwarts. Don't use Hedwig, keep changing owls, and don't worry about me, just watch out for yourself. Don't forget what I said about your scar._

_Sirius_

Within a day, Sirius actually had managed to hide himself in an abandoned Muggle warehouse. He again commenced taking small jobs of short duration and slipped into a wizarding village nightly to steal copies of the Daily Prophet. Stealing food was not terribly difficult, either, and he managed to keep Buckbeak well-concealed.

Dumbledore repeated what Sirius already knew; that Mad-Eye Moody had come to Hogwarts and that surely Harry and the other students were safe. Remus, though, mentioned that rumors were swirling that the Tri-Wizard Tournament was to be re-instated.

… _I expect that the students will be most excited. Some of them may know that the Tournament was originally cancelled because of the high incidence of champion deaths, but I'm sure that very few of them understand the ties that the Tournament has to Dark Magic. Cheating was of course a time-honored part of the tradition, and the cheating became more dangerous and unethical as time passed. To make things worse, we know that Wormtail is out there somewhere with the intent to rejoin the Dark Lord. Finally, one of the schools set to participate in the Tournament is almost certainly Durmstrang. The Head of Durmstrang is none other than our old friend, Karkaroff. Durmstrang is no less notorious for teaching its students Dark Arts now than it was twenty years ago._

_It concerns me that the Hogwarts students know none of this. The wizarding community of England has buried its head in the sand ever since the fall of Lord Voldemort. The adults have done their best to forget what they knew and saw and have not passed their knowledge on to their children. What can we expect from a society that places a taboo on the mere uttering of Voldemort's name? The only children who know anything of the Unforgivable Curses or the habits of Death Eaters are those who were directly affected. While we know exactly who supported Lord Voldemort, we refrain from admitting as much and so give them the freedom to repeat history… I hope that the rumors are wrong, and that Harry will have the good sense to stay far away from the Tournament should it actually be held at Hogwarts…_

But it seemed that Harry's good sense was irrelevant.

_Dear Sirius,_

_You told me to keep you posted on what's happening at Hogwarts, so here goes-- I don't know if you've heard, but the Triwizard Tournament's happening this year and on Sunday night I got picked as a fourth champion. I don't know who put my name in the Goblet of Fire, because I didn't. The other Hogwarts champion is Cedric Diggory, from Hufflepuff._

_Hope you're okay, and Buckbeak._

_--Harry_

Sirius tossed his godson's letter to the ground and did some creative swearing. His anger was directed not at Harry but at the world in general. Harry himself was nothing short of amazing. In fact, Harry's development into a young man had dealt parenting a serious blow; Harry had grown up to be practically perfect without having any parents at all. That Harry had bothered to ask after Sirius and Buckbeak when his was the life in danger was indicative of his character.

There was no doubt in Sirius' mind that whoever did know how Harry's name had found its way into the Goblet wanted the last Potter to become the most recent Triwizard Champion to die in the line of duty.

Remus was right. It was dangerous for Harry not to know any of the history of the first war against Voldemort, but Sirius could hardly put the information Harry needed in a letter. It had been bad enough for Remus, who was neither on the run nor famous, to write vagaries in a letter to Sirius; Sirius writing a more detailed letter to Harry could be disastrous. The only thing to do was ask Harry to clear the Common Room of other students and contact him through the fire. Hogwarts fires were not meant to allow such contact from outside the school, but Mr. Padfoot, purveyor of aids to magical mischief-makers, had long ago learned a thing or two about manipulating Hogwarts' communications systems.

Harry agreed, and on the appointed night Sirius casually wandered into a deserted wizarding home that he knew always stood empty at this hour. So concerned was Sirius about the behavior of the Goblet of Fire that he forgot to be nervous about the prospect of meeting his godson face-to-face for only the second time since Harry's babyhood.

Throwing powder and then his head into the fire, Sirius blinked into the once-familiar Gryffindor Common Room.

"Sirius-- how're you doing?" asked Harry, true to form.

"Never mind me, how are you?"

"I'm--" Harry paused, and the smile on his young face disappeared to be replaced by a cross between stress and agony. "I'm-- you know I didn't put my name in the Goblet, but no one believes me, and now everyone hates me. Well, not everyone, a couple of the Gryffindors think its great that there's a Gryffindor champion, but, well, I'd expect it from the Slytherins, but the Hufflepuffs, they all love Cedric-- he's the real champion-- because you know everyone says Hufflepuffs are thick and duffers and squibs. They think I did it on purpose, and when I go to class with them they won't speak to me, they glare at me, even Professor Sprout does, she hates me now. Everyone has badges and signs that say 'Potter Stinks' and people point at me and laugh or try to trip me in the corridors, they try to dump food on me in the Great Hall, they snicker and they tell jokes and talk about how all I want is publicity and I'm a thief, and then Rita Skeeter wrote an article. She had a quill that made things up, she told everyone I cry over my parents and I don't even remember my parents so I can't cry over them, and she said I was in love with Hermione and it's not true, and so everyone's after Hermione, and it's not fair that she's getting teased for being my friend and I don't want anyone to hurt Hermione and she's the only one who'll have anything to do with me because Ron doesn't believe me and Hermione's probably going to hate me soon, too. Ron thinks I did it on purpose and he's just jealous and Hermione says I should make up with him but I don't want to make up with him because he started it and if he's like the rest of the school and wants not to speak to me and to have me dead, then that's fine, and I don't know why he's jealous because I don't know why anyone would want the whole school to hate him or why anyone would want to get killed or made fun of, and I just want to be left alone, but no one will leave me alone, and everyone cheats in this contest and everyone's getting together to watch me fail and laugh when I do and I don't think I really want to stay at Hogwarts. But they're getting ready anyway and I'm magically bound to stay and now Hagrid's just shown me what's coming in the first task and it's dragons, Sirius, and I'm a goner."

Harry had spoken almost without drawing breath, and it was clear that he had been saving his words for days if not weeks. Sirius wanted nothing more than to give his godson the reassurance he needed, but time was short, and Harry had not yet had the opportunity to get used to trusting Sirius. The back of Sirius' mind took up the familiar chant of _THIS IS ALL WORMTAIL'S FAULT_, but he forced those thoughts away as he looked at Harry's anxious face.

"Dragons we can deal with, Harry," he began, but dissertations on a dragon's eyesight could wait. Surely someone would be monitoring the task to make certain that Harry did not burn to death, but no one was monitoring the Death Eaters to make certain that Harry was not dragged to Voldemort's lair. "We'll get to that in a minute-- I haven't got long here… I've broken into a wizarding house to use the fire, but they could be back at any time. There are things I need to warn you about."

"What?" asked Harry. His face paled further, and he began to look genuinely ill. Sirius wondered if there was any possibility of yanking Harry through the fire alive without Floo Powder and proceeding to lock him up in a tower where he would be safe.

"Karkaroff," Sirius spat. "Harry, he was a Death Eater." Sirius told his godson about Karkaroff's past and about his suspicions as to why Harry's name had been placed in the Goblet. But just as he was about to alleviate Harry's fears about getting past a dragon, Harry raised a hand.

"Go! Go! There's someone coming!"

Sirius went.

He paced angrily about the edge of the town in dog form for three days. At last, Daily Prophets began to fall from the sky with news of the Triwizard Tournament. He caught one in his mouth and bounded out of sight, but thanks to his resemblance to a Grim, no one pursued him. He tore at the paper with teeth and claws, and then, desperately, transformed to unfold the paper and see the declaration that the youngest champion's performance had been the best. Not long afterwards, the tiny owl which he had sent to Ron arrived bearing a letter that must have weighed nearly as much as the owl itself. It was full of praise for the Firebolt and vivid descriptions of flying past a dragon.

Sirius assumed that Harry's use of Ron's owl meant that the boys had mended their fences. Nonetheless, Sirius could not help feeling a small bit of anger toward Ron-- toward anyone who dared make Harry unhappy-- as well as a small bit of irony that Harry had once again done better without parental advice than he would have done with it.

He sent Harry a letter of congratulations and set about planning a way of obtaining a good, godfatherly Christmas present now that he was certain Harry would see Christmas. At last, he decided to steal a useful penknife with attached knot- and lock-pickers that he rather liked himself. He knew that Harry would not approve of a stolen Christmas present, but decided that what Harry didn't know would not in this particular case hurt him. He and Harry could wait a few years before discussing situational ethics.

He then sent a letter to Remus. Inspired by Harry's description of the first task, he made note of every twist, turn, and glance that stealing the knife had involved.

The months which followed held the potential to be relaxing. Apparently, Harry harbored no fears about the second part of the Tournament, for he made no mention of it and indeed stopped writing except to inquire after Sirius and Buckbeak's well-being. But Sirius did not relax. He gave up his habit of occasionally hiring himself out as a Muggle. His habits of shaving and trying to keep his hair from matting were also discontinued. There hardly seemed to be a point. Instead, he devoted the whole of his time to scrounging Daily Prophets and waiting for the storm to arrive.

Arrive it did, in the form of a convoluted story about the unholy trinity of Snape, Crouch, and Mad-Eye Moody. Sirius was unable to report this information to Dumbledore, and so wrote the aged Headmaster a letter requesting permission to come nearer to Hogwarts. As soon as Dumbledore had described the location of a cave in Hogsmeade, Sirius and Buckbeak relocated and arranged a meeting with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Padfoot scrambled down the steep embankment to wait for the trio, and he smelled them before he saw them. They had chicken. They had chicken and for that he liked them even more than he had on the day that they had saved him from the dementors.

They came into sight looking much as Sirius had remembered them. They were a bit taller, naturally, and the bright sunlight emphasized sparkling eyes and shining hair. All three had thrown their cloaks casually over their shoulders, and they looked the picture of that which they were not: ordinary school children.

"Hello, Sirius," said Harry.

_I have to remember to remind him not to call me by name_, Padfoot thought to himself. He wagged his tail and led them up the mountainous path.

Once inside the cave, Padfoot transformed. Hermione threw herself at Buckbeak, to whom she was apparently quite attached despite her dislike for flying, but Harry stared at Sirius.

"Chicken," Sirius reminded his godson. Obediently, the boy handed over the food. "Thanks. I've been living off rats mostly. Can't steal too much food from Hogsmeade; I'd draw attention to myself." He smiled at Harry, who only forced a smile in return.

"What're you doing here, Sirius?" _Sounds more paternal than I do. How does he manage that?_

"Fulfilling my duty as a godfather," he answered at lightly as he could. "Don't worry about it, I'm pretending to be a loveable stray." Harry still wore a patented "I-am-not-amused" expression on his face. The expression had surely been inherited from Lily, but Sirius deemed it best not to mention as much for now. _I suppose I have to try the truth without any jokes. _"I want to be on the spot. Your last letter… let's just say things are getting fishier. I've been stealing the paper every time someone throws one out, and by the looks of things, I'm not the only one who's getting worried."

Harry was not prepared to let up. "What if they catch you? What if you're seen?"

_First of all, I'm not stupid, and second of all, my life is worth nothing without yours_. "You three and Dumbledore are the only ones around here who know I'm an Animagus."

Harry did not look prepared to let up, but Ron, who had been sorting through Sirius' collection of Daily Prophets, distracted him with an article about Bartemius Crouch. "They're making it sound like he's dying," Harry said thoughtfully. "But he can't be that ill if he's managed to get up here…"

"My brother's Crouch's personal assistant. He says Crouch is suffering from overwork," Ron picked up.

"He did look ill, the last time I saw him up close," Harry added. "The night my name came out of the Goblet…"

"Getting his comeuppance for sacking Winky, isn't he?" Hermione spoke at last. Her voice held disdain bordering on hatred for Crouch, and Sirius was reminded of how thoroughly he liked Harry's second-best-friend.

The next few moments were a flow of information involving Crouch's house-elf, an empty seat in the Top Box at the Quidditch World Cup, a stolen wand, Ludo Bagman and his alleged affection for Harry, and Hermione's dislike for Crouch.

"Hermione, will you give it a rest with the elf!" Ron snapped at last.

"She's got the measure of Crouch better than you have, Ron," Sirius interrupted, trying not to sound too harsh. "If you want to see what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." _And this concludes today's portion of godfatherly advice._ "All these absences of Barty Crouch's," Sirius mused aloud. "He goes to the trouble of making sure his house-elf saves him a seat at the Quidditch World Cup, but doesn't bother to turn up and watch. He works very hard to reinstate the Triwizard Tournament, and then stops coming to that too… It's not like Crouch." _The bloody, arrogant, heartless, stupid bastard!_ "If he's ever taken a day off work because of illness before this, I'll eat Buckbeak."

"D'you know Crouch, then?" Harry asked keenly.

Sirius dropped all pretense of objectivity. "I know Crouch all right. He was the one who gave the order for me to be sent to Azkaban-- without a trial."

Not even Ron, the Ministry Brat, had known of this. "You're kidding!" Harry exclaimed.

_Because it's so amusing._ "No, I'm not. Crouch used to be Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, didn't you know? He was tipped for the next Minister of Magic. He's a great wizard, Barty Crouch, powerfully magical-- and power-hungry." The three young faces paled. Harry, Ron, and Hermione obviously subscribed to the view that ambition meant Dark tendencies. "Never a Voldemort supporter. No, Barty Crouch was always very outspoken against the Dark Side. But a lot of people who were against the Dark Side… well, you wouldn't understand… you're too young…"

Ron scowled. "That's what my Dad said at the World Cup. Try us, why don't you?"

As in the Shrieking Shack nearly a year earlier, Sirius was reminded of himself as a teenager. "All right, I'll try you…" He did his best to explain with words the virtually indescribable atmosphere of the world before Voldemort's first fall. The three students listened intently, and proved themselves well worth trying. Still, Sirius wished that he could have spoken about Quidditch and school dances with his godson and political concerns with someone more likely to recognize real clues for what they were rather than mention them accidentally. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "What time is it?"

"It's half past three," Hermione informed him

"You'd better get back to school. Now, listen." _Let's hope you're better at listening than I used to be_. "I don't want you lot sneaking out of school to see me, all right? Just send notes to me. I still want to hear about anything odd. But you're not to go leaving Hogwarts without permission; it would be an ideal opportunity for someone to attack you."

"No one's tried to attack me so far, except a dragon and a couple of grindylows," said Harry.

_Sure, now you remember your sense of sarcasm. Where do you get off worrying about me and not yourself? Is this some sort of inbred Potter trait? _"I don't care. I'll breathe freely again when this tournament's over, and that's not until June. And don't forget, if you're talking about me among yourselves, call me Snuffles, okay?"

He walked them back to the village and resumed scrounging papers and thinking troubled thoughts.

_If Snape really was associated with Death Eaters, I can't imagine why Dumbledore allowed him in. It would be like Mad-Eye to be paranoid about anything, but Crouch never bothered looking for evidence. I suppose if Snape is under Dumbledore's protection, he'd have to… If he's looking into the sabotage of the Triwizard Tournament… or if he initiated the Tournament with the intent of taking down someone in Hogwarts, no, that's too far-fetched, but perhaps one of the other supporters… can't imagine Ludo Bagman's got the brains, might just be fascinated with Harry because he's James' son, might have played against James, can't remember… someone's doing Dark Magic at a high level, Bertha Jorkins was NEVER stupid, at least not that way… is the Dark Magic even connected to the Tournament?... I can't see Karkaroff going back, not after the way he turned on the Death Eaters… not popular in Azkaban, that one… not Karkaroff, someone else, but how does he know Snape…_

The thoughts refused to take an exact shape in his mind. He wished again for someone off of whom to bounce ideas, but he was trying to stay hidden in a fairly public place and wanted to save any conspicuous correspondence for Harry:

_Dear Sirius,_

_You aren't going to like this very much._

Sirius did not find this the most comforting opening to a letter that he had ever come across.

_I was just called outside with the other champions. They wanted to tell us about the final task. It's to be a maze, and they claim it will be fun, but Hagrid is providing some of the obstacles so I have my doubts. That isn't what you aren't going to like very much._

So it got worse?

_I expect you read or heard about the article about Hermione and Krum and me. To be clear, Hermione and I have NEVER dated. She's my friend, the same as Ron. I know you know this, but some people I thought would have put more thought into things have been horrible to Hermione. Ron's mother sent Ron and me eggs for Easter and only a small one to Hermione, and you'd think she'd know that if anyone fancies Hermione it's-- never mind. I'm not getting to the point._

_Krum pulled me aside to talk about Hermione-- wanted to know, like everyone else, if there's ever been anything between us. We were wandering into the forest when we heard a noise-- and it was Mr. Crouch! He looked awful, was talking like he was mad, raving about his son and Ron's brother. He said things about Voldemort and a mistake and me, and that he needed to warn Dumbledore. I left Krum there with him and went to find Dumbledore, but Snape slowed me down, and by the time we got back Krum was alone and unconscious. _

_This qualifies as something unusual, but don't worry too much. Ron and Hermione and I are always together and we're fine._

_Harry_

Furious, Sirius wrote the fastest letter of his life.

_Harry-- what do you think you are playing at, walking off into the forest with Viktor Krum? I want you to swear, by return owl, that you are not going to go walking with anyone else at night. There is somebody highly dangerous at Hogwarts. It is clear to me that they wanted to stop Crouch from seeing Dumbledore and you were probably feet away from them in the dark. You could have been killed._

_Your name didn't get into the Goblet of Fire by accident. If someone's trying to attack you, they're on their last chance. Stay close to Ron and Hermione, do not leave Gryffindor Tower after hours, and arm yourself for the third task. Practice stunning and disarming. A few hexes wouldn't go amiss, either. There's nothing you can do about Crouch. Keep your head down and look after yourself. I'm waiting for your letter giving me your word you won't stray out of bounds again._

_Sirius_

The reply was swift.

_Sirius--_

_I will do as you asked. You have my word. Don't worry._

_--Harry_

Don't worry, indeed!

Sirius wrote to Harry every day thereafter. All thoughts of solving the mysteries of Crouch and Bertha Jorkins, all memories of Azkaban, all fears of pushing Harry to quickly to accept his godfather into his life, and even all plans for vengeance against Pettigrew were forced from his mind. All that mattered was Harry's safety, and while the letters did nothing to protect him, they were better than nothing.

The letters varied little from day to day, as they shared a common set of phrases.

_I'm worried about you._

_Your safety is the most important thing._

_Stay near Ron and Hermione._

_Stay within Dumbledore's protection._

_Don't talk to anyone you don't know well._

_Worry about the maze before you worry about anything else. _

_Take no risks._

On the morning of the final task, Sirius could not even connect his thoughts to write his usual letter of warning. Instead, he sent a scrap of folded parchment that could pass as a good-luck card and set out after the owl for Hogwarts. He lay in Hagrid's pumpkin patch as inconspicuously as possible and awaited the sound of screams.

He had a long wait. Around noon, Dumbledore himself strolled down to see him. "I see you're already here," he said, his sharp eyes dancing across Padfoot's body. "Don't transform. Ron's mother and brother are here to support Harry, and the contest isn't until this evening. As soon as it's over, I'll send him down to see you. All right?"

Padfoot nodded, feeling everything in the world other than "all right." He would have loved nothing better than to stand up and pace the length of the pumpkin patch, but doing so would have caught the attention of passersby.

As the sun fell lower in the sky, Padfoot grew more anxious, and each exhalation became a whine. Every shout of every student who ran down to the Quidditch Pitch added to the horror of the wait.

By the time the screams and shouts of the crowd turned to a collective gasp, Padfoot had stopped breathing entirely.

_He's dead, he's dead, he's dead. He didn't come to see me, so he must be dead, and something made the crowd calm down so he must be dead. The last Potter… James…_

When footsteps at last approached Padfoot, they belonged not to Dumbledore but to McGonagall. "Dumbledore says you're to come with me," she informed him. She eyed him as he scrambled hastily to his feet and awaited her direction. She looked him over, but, never one to ignore Dumbledore's wishes, she led him to the Headmaster's office. He was not aware of his claws clinking against the floor of the corridors or of any of his surroundings. "He'll be with you shortly."

_TO TELL ME HARRY'S DEAD! I'M SORRY, HARRY, I'M SORRY!_

He changed back into human form to greet Dumbledore and thank him for his help before he served himself to the dementors. A cool wave of understanding passed over him, a wave of understanding he had felt just once before, on the day in 1981 when he had tracked down Peter Pettigrew with the intent of avenging Harry's parents' deaths.

But when the door was opened, Dumbledore was accompanied by Harry. Sirius crossed the room in one jump. "Harry, are you all right? I knew it-- I knew something like this-- what happened?" Any relief Sirius had felt was short-lived. Harry was a disheveled mess and one leg was not bearing his weight. Sirius shook as he pulled out a chair and half-placed Harry in it. The desire to do more was palpable, but he could not know the extent of Harry's injuries, and his eyes… his eyes… "What happened?" he repeated.

It was Dumbledore who answered. "You came closer than you would have hoped when you tried to analyze the situation. Professor Moody was not Professor Moody; it was Barty Crouch, the younger, under the influence of Polyjuice Potion. You were not the first Azkaban escapee." Sirius nodded numbly, his still shaking hands gripping the back of Harry's chair. "His mother came to visit him, dying, and with Polyjuice Potion she took his place. His father kept him confined, but as the years passed, he gained strength and placed his father under the Imperius Curse. It was he who conjured the Dark Mark at the World Cup. It was he who put Harry's name in the Goblet with the intent of handing him to Voldemort. The Cup at the end of the maze was a Portkey, and while Harry came back alive, our other champion did not."

As Dumbledore completed his brief explanation of events, Fawkes the phoenix perched himself in Harry's lap.

"'Lo, Fawkes," Harry whispered. It was the first time Harry had spoken, and his voice sound world-weary and raspy.

Dumbledore crossed the room to look Harry in the eye. "I need to know what happened after you touched the Portkey in the maze, Harry."

Hot ire rose in Sirius. His hand crept from the back of the chair to Harry's shoulder which, while thankfully warm, did not feel as if it belonged to a living thing. "We can leave that till morning, can't we, Dumbledore? Let him have a sleep. Let him rest." It was the very least Sirius could do to keep Dumbledore from interrogating Harry just yet. James and Lily ought to be here, comforting Harry. Harry ought to have grown up with Sirius so that Sirius would have had the right to pull him into his lap, and let him fall asleep, and take him home where he could be a child instead of a part of Voldemort's insane plan for world domination.

Dumbledore ignored Sirius and directed himself to Harry. "If I thought I could help you by putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened."

Harry took a deep breath and began haltingly. "We-- we slammed into the ground and I asked where we were, but Cedric just shook his head. We looked around, we were in a graveyard by an old house. Cedric asked if I knew the Cup was a Porkey, because we'd been telling each other things about the Tournament all year, because everyone was cheating, but I said I hadn't known. And he said we should take our wands out, and I was really glad because-- because I didn't want to be the one to say it. Then we saw someone coming, carrying something, and then my scar exploded. I-- I-- dropped my wand and I almost passed out, but I heard someone, Voldemort, say 'Kill the spare,' and someone else yelled Avada Kedavra, and then Cedric was dead. Wormtail-- Wormtail tied me to Tom Riddle's headstone. They threw this thing into the cauldron-- bone of the father, Wormtail said, and then flesh of the servant, cut off his own hand… and then blood of the enemy, and he cut me…"

Sirius swore aloud, though he had not meant ever to swear before his godson, and gripped Harry's shoulder more tightly. "Show us," commanded Dumbledore. Harry moved almost painfully to draw up his sleeve.

"He cut me there. He said my blood would make him stronger than someone else's. He said the protection my-- my mother left in me-- he'd have it, too. And he was right-- he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face."

"Very well," said Dumbledore. "Voldemort has overcome that particular barrier. Harry, continue, please."

"He-- he explained about his parents, and that the Death Eaters were his real family. They Apparated in a circle and they fell on their knees and kissed his robes. He said they should have come to him sooner. He said he was disappointed. He said-- he didn't forgive them. He put the Cruciatus Curse on-- I think it was Avery. And then he gave Wormtail a silver hand to repay him for helping him rise again." Sirius felt his blood rise at the repeated mention of Wormtail's name. "Then he went through the other Death Eaters, asking them to do better… he said they should have helped but he still had the power to possess other bodies… he talked about Quirrell, and how Wormtail captured Bertha Jorkins so they could use her information… he said a lot I can't really remember and then he put the Cruciatus Curse on me…"

Sirius tried his best to relax his grip on Harry's shoulder as it occurred to him that he might be making Harry's pain worse. But relaxing had been an impossibility for a long while.

Harry gallantly resumed his narration. "Wormtail untied me and gave me my wand, Voldemort wanted to duel with me, he did something to make me bow to him. And the Cruciatus Curse again-- then he tried the Imperius Curse but that doesn't work on me, and he yelled Avada Kedavra and I yelled Expeliarmus because it's the only dueling spell I know-- the wands connected--"

Harry's mouth moved uselessly a few more times, but he was clearly unable to speak. Sirius inwardly cursed Dumbledore for forcing Harry to relive this so quickly, for good reason or not.

"Their wands connected?" he asked, addressing himself to Dumbledore to give Harry a break. "Why?"

"Priori Incantantem," Dumbledore muttered.

"The Reverse Spell effect?" Sirius translated. He knew he had learned about it, once, probably the day before he took his NEWTs. It was an obscure bit of magic.

"Exactly," said Dumbledore. "Harry's wand and Voldemort's wand share cores." The headmaster went on to explain that none other than Fawkes had donated the cores of the wands. Somehow, Sirius was unsurprised.

"What happens when a wand meets its brother?" he asked.

"They will not work properly against each other. If, however, the owners of the wands force the wands to do battle, a very rare effect will take place. One of the wands will force the other to regurgitate the spells it had performed-- in reverse. The most recent first… and then those which preceded it… Which means that some form of Cedric must have reappeared."

Harry nodded in confirmation.

"Diggory came back to life?" asked Sirius, startled. He had always been told that no spell woke the dead, but he _really_ had not remembered much of the NEWTs by the time he had gotten his results.

"No spell can reawaken the dead. All that would have happened is a kind of reverse echo. A shadow of the living Cedric would have emerged from the wand… am I correct, Harry?"

Harry's trembling intensified, and Sirius again beat down the urge to pick him up as if he were much younger than fourteen. _You hardly want to add abject humiliation to this, do you? You can't make things any better._ "He spoke to me," Harry's voice shook. "The ghost Cedric, or whatever he was, spoke."

"An echo," repeated Dumbledore, "which retained Cedric's appearance and character. I am guessing other such forms appeared… less recent victims of Voldemort's wand…"

"And old man." Harry's voice was thick with unshed tears. "Bertha Jorkins. And…"

Harry trailed off, but Dumbledore completed the phrase. "Your parents?"

"Yes." Harry was almost inaudible. Sirius had never felt more helpless in his life, but Dumbledore methodically continued the interrogation. "Ced-- Cedric told me to hold on, and so did Bertha Jorkins. The old man… my-- my mother--"

_Lily_. Sirius' hand slipped limply and unwillingly from Harry's shoulder.

"She said my father was coming. She said-- it-- said it would be all right--"

Had Lily taken up lying in the afterlife? The absurdity of the thought caused something to snap inside Sirius, and the tears that Harry had been able to restrain threatened to fill his eyes. He buried his face in his hands and drew in a deep breath. _Focus… Harry's here… help Harry…_

"My father said that when the spell broke, they-- they-- would stay-- for just long enough-- for me to get to the Portkey."

_Good plan, James. You're dead and you protect him better than I do. I'm so sorry, Harry._

"And Cedric asked for me to take his body to his paren…" Harry lost all ability to speak and Sirius looked up as Dumbledore at last agreed to let Harry adjourn to the hospital wing.

"Sirius, would you like to stay with him?"

It seemed odd that Dumbledore would even ask. Sirius nodded, not yet trusting his voice, and transformed.

The Weasleys and Hermione pounced upon Harry when he arrived, and Padfoot felt a mix of deep gratitude and petty jealousy toward them. Harry was dosed with sleeping potion, and Padfoot sat with his head resting on Harry's cot. Hermione and Ron temporarily tore their eyes from Harry to give the dog knowing, sympathetic looks, and he wagged his tail once in response.

"Do you know that animal?" Mrs. Weasley asked sharply.

"He's fine, Mum," said Ron in a low, non-committal voice.

"I know that, or Dumbledore wouldn't have let him stay."

"Harry's very fond of him," Hermione jumped in, her voice more convincing than Ron's had been. "And he's very protective of Harry. We met him in Hogsmeade, you know, and it just makes Harry… safer when he's here."

Mrs. Weasley seemed to accept the explanation, and they waited together in complete silence from then on.

The silence was broken by the arrival of Cornelius Fudge, Minerva McGonagall, and, to Padfoot's disgust, Severus Snape. Snape, for the first time in memory, lost his position at the top of Padfoot's list of people he did not like when Fudge revealed that he had had Crouch's soul removed and questioned Harry's sanity.

Padfoot growled. Fudge ignored him. "You are prepared to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned on the word of a lunatic murderer and a boy who… well…"

"You've been reading Rita Skeeter, Mr. Fudge," said Harry quietly. Padfoot had not realized the boy had awakened. But nothing Harry and Dumbledore said would convince Fudge that Voldemort had risen.

And then Snape strode forward and pulled up the sleeve of his robe. Padfoot stood up out of reflex as Snape spoke. "There! There. The Dark Mark." _He was a Death Eater! But I never heard a word…_ "It is not as clear as it was an hour or so ago, when it burned black, but you can still see it. Every Death Eater had the sign burned into him by the Dark Lord. It was a means of distinguishing one another, and his means of summoning us to him." _The things I don't know!_ "This Mark has been growing clearer all year…"

Padfoot was in shock, and Fudge must have been as well, because he stormed from the room accusing Snape of playing games when he should have realized that Snape had no sense of humor. Dumbledore proceeded to give orders to the others, and Padfoot had settled down to stare at Snape and reconsider him when Dumbledore looked him in the eye. "Resume your usual form."

Mrs. Weasley screamed. "Sirius Black!" _I suppose I'm still on the recognizable side._

"Mum, shut up!" Ron yelled. "It's okay!"

Sirius could not contemplate what Ron's mother might do to punish her youngest son because he was busy glaring at Snape, who was busy pretending righteous outrage.

"It is time," Sirius heard Dumbledore say through the haze of his glare, "for the two of you to lay aside your old differences and trust each other." _And perhaps I'll also start trusting Wormtail to look after Harry!_ "I will settle in the short term for a lack of open hostility." _That's a more likely goal for the long-term, that_. "You are on the same side now. Time is short, and unless the few of us who know the truth stand united, there is no hope for any of us."

Sirius, careful to move no more quickly than Snape, reached out and brushed his hand against the other man's. He vowed to cleanse his hand with boiling oil at the soonest possible opportunity.

"That will do to be going on with," Dumbledore continued. "Now I have work for each of you. Fudge's attitude, though not unexpected, changes everything. Sirius, I need you to set off at once. You are to alert Remus Lupin, Arabella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher-- the old crowd. Lie low at Lupin's for a while; I will contact you there."

"But--" Harry put in.

Sirius turned to his godson. Harry knew that there was no way a convicted criminal could remain for too long a time at Hogwarts. Harry further had the support of more people than he knew what to do with, considering that he thought all affection and fussing to be smothering and embarrassing. The best thing Sirius could do for Harry was follow Dumbledore's orders. He was of no good to Harry now-- it seemed that Mrs. Weasley had a better chance of helping him. "You'll see me very soon. I promise you. But I must do what I can, you understand, don't you?"

"Yeah," said Harry. "Yeah, of course I do." Sirius briefly took Harry's hand-- surely this simple gesture was not enough to set off Harry's fourteen-year-old anti-fussing alarms-- and left swiftly.

He bounded from the castle and ran in dog form down the familiar path to Hogsmeade. The hike to his cavernous hiding place had never seemed so steep. Changing back, he half-shouted "Buckbeak!" He barely bothered to bow, but the hippogriff accepted his offering. A year of co-habitation had convinced Buckbeak to grant his fellow fugitive some leeway. "We're going to Surrey. Little Whinging. And we're going now, before we lose the darkness."

He led Buckbeak from the cave and then mounted the animal, glad to be riding and not running. "I know we're doing something for Harry now," he told the animal as they took off, "but it doesn't feel like it. I wish… I almost wish I could have hugged him. I just want to take him home. But he has people he trusts more than me, and I don't have a home to take him to."

They flew almost halfway to their destination before the bright sky forced them to stop. "We'd do better if I had a wand," Sirius grumbled, but Buckbeak gave him a look of obvious disagreement. "All right, I know you're doing all the work." Pleased with this admission, Buckbeak lay down to sleep. Sirius was unable to join him; he was in fact unable to do anything but remember the pain on Harry's face. "I'm a hell of a good godfather," he told himself sarcastically. "And perhaps I'll stop talking out loud now as I don't want to be caught before Harry turns fifteen."

The next night took them to the house from which Arabella Figg had reported on Harry's growth during the long years before the boy started Hogwarts.

Sirius dismounted Buckbeak and promptly had to grab onto him for support. He had neither eaten nor slept since before the Third Task, and now he was dizzy and sore from long hours of riding. He looked around the quiet street, but no one had noticed the commotion.

He decided that he had best ring the doorbell. Then he decided that he had best ring the doorbell many, many times to ensure that Arabella would arise. He heard footsteps on stairs, and then the door opened.

"Who do you think you are, leaning on-- Sirius Black!" She jumped back in alarm, but Sirius did not feel the need to be delicate in his explanations.

"Dumbledore sent me to speak to you."

She stepped backwards once more. "He-- he contacted me and said not to be alarmed."

"Then perhaps you should take his word for it."

"Of-- of course. Won't you come in?" She looked reluctant, and he felt reluctant. He was no longer used to the insides of houses, and this one smelled of cats and cabbage.

"I need to hide my hippogriff." He gestured at Buckbeak.

She looked around anxiously. "Bring him inside, too."

Sirius shrugged. It seemed the only solution in a densely populated Muggle neighborhood. "Come on, Buckbeak." The hippogriff froze. He had not likely been invited inside a house before. _Or perhaps he has. One never does know with Hagrid. Perhaps he doesn't like cabbage…_ "Come along," Sirius repeated.

"Yes," Arabella urged the great beast. "Come in, visit Smokey and Chester and Spike."

Sirius briefly flicked his eyes from Buckbeak to Arabella. "Your cats?"

"Yes," she said proudly. Once the hippogriff was inside, he lay down contentedly on the living room floor. Sirius merely glanced about, wondering how much time Harry had spent in this very room as a young boy. He felt a familiar lance of jealousy, and an added jolt of anger. _I can't imagine Arabella did much to make Harry's visits here more pleasant than living with his miserable relatives. _

She had also been scarred by the last war, he knew. Everyone who had been close to Dumbledore had been hurt, but everyone accepted the hurt as mitigated by the results of the war.

"Get your rest, Buckbeak," Sirius said, more comfortable talking to the familiar hippogriff than the unfamiliar human. "We're leaving tonight."

"Tonight?" asked Arabella. "Don't you need more time to take care of yourself?"

"I'd never impose myself on you."

"It's not--"

"What do you know about the Triwizard Tournament?"

"Very little. Dumbledore has sent me messages, but I don't subscribe to the Daily Prophet-- it would be too suspicious around here-- and I like living as a Muggle."

Sirius nodded and steeled himself for a detailed explanation. "Things went badly, to say the least…"

"I see why Dumbledore had to send someone to speak to me in person," she said wryly as she wandered into her kitchen and returned with food for both Sirius and Buckbeak. Sirius was most of the way through his meal before he realized that it was quite stale. When he did realize it, he did not care. "Are you certain that you need to leave tonight?" Arabella asked when he had finished.

"Yes. A whole list of people to speak to-- the old crowd."

"Do you want me to speak to some of them for you? It would speed things along."

Sirius nodded. "Yes, thank you." They divided up the list over cups of tea, and Sirius felt his initial anger at the old woman fading. It was not her fault that she had watched Harry grow up and he had not. _Harry_. The sooner this task was completed, the sooner Sirius would see Harry. If he had delayed, he might have visited Harry while informing Arabella of the problems, but time was of the utmost importance, and so he had arrived here before Harry had even left Hogwarts. In a way, it was comforting to Sirius to breathe the air Harry had breathed and drink from a teacup he might have touched.

_You're obsessed, Black. But it's not a bad obsession. _

Sirius was given a bedroom in which to sleep the day away, but as soon as Arabella left he turned himself into a dog and curled up on the floor. He was not going to risk suffering a human night terror in the home of a woman he barely knew. Sleeping as a human was unfamiliar and left him feeling defenseless.

Arabella woke him at dusk and sent him on his way. It was a hard journey to Mundungus, but the results were much the same. Mundungus agreed to help Dumbledore in any way that he could.

And then Sirius was on his way to Remus. Neither Arabella nor Mundungus had known Remus' exact address, and so Sirius left Buckbeak tethered in a convenient cave and went searching in dog form. The travel was harder than he had expected; he was as worn as he had been since escaping Azkabam_. I'm going to collapse as soon as I get to his house_, he thought ruefully. Perhaps it would have been better to let Arabella or Mundungus do more for him. He did not want to embarrass himself in front of Remus… he missed Remus… but he was nervous… and then a scent caught his animal nose.

_I'm here._

He could only hope that this meeting with Remus would be better than his last.

That there was hope at all was at least a start.

The End

**(To see Sirius meet up with Remus, go on to_ Innocence Lost and Found_. You can find it here at ff.n on my author page. It's better than its title—and yes, I know that isn't saying much.)**

**Answer to comment from review:**

_**Too many authors have had Dumbledore giving Remus the job offer the day after the full moon. I'm still trying to see the sense in that.**_

I can't see it happening any other way. Firstly, Remus is easiest to find on the day after a full moon. There are a limited number of places he could be. Secondly, he's easier to argue with when he's exhausted. It's not that you'd win an argument with him you'd normally lose, but you might win an argument faster than you usually would. Wolfsbane Potion is probably a more powerful bribe right after a transformation than when a transformation is weeks away. Thirdly, if Dumbledore goes to see him the morning after a transformation, he "just happens to be there" to take care of him. Fourthly, in this case, Dumbledore wants to be the one to tell him that Sirius broke out of Azkaban, and I firmly believe that Sirius did that when the moon was full or nearly full (because his big advantage over dementors is that he can see and they can't, and because full moons are indirectly connected to his sense of dog/self/reality).

**Note of Revision**: _I reposted this story in October 2007, 6 years after the original writing (this was written when there were only 4 books in the series). As you can see, I did not make it canon-compliant; I mostly improved the formatting. I'm surprisingly fond of my plotless wonder here 6 years later; my fifth year trilogy makes me want to poke my own eyes out. _

_**Thank you to everyone who has reviewed over the years.**_


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